I wish these had been around when I barely scraped through my Chemistry ‘O’ Level exams.

They a collection of basic chemical information sites that, IMO, rival the wiklpedia entries – here they are:

Benzoic Acid
Calcium Chloride
Conductivity Standards
Copper Oxide
Copper Sulphate
Demineralised Water
Denatured Alcohol
Ethanoic Acid
Ethylene Glycol
Ferric Chloride
Ferrous Sulphate
Formic Acid
Glycerine
Glycerol
Methylene Blue
Oxalic Acid
Phenolphthalein
Polyethyleneglycol
Potassium Carbonate
Potassium Chloride
Potassium Dichromate
Potassium Sulphate
Sodium Acetate
Sodium Chloride
Sodium Nitrate
Sterile Water
Toluene

……. more than my chemistry set ever had, thats for sure

Oh no – we went the full ‘Hog’.. we had a hog roast

It was a large party we had planned, and I certainly didn’t fancy donning my chef’s hat and getting all stressed over a few burgers and chops – I wanted to to enjoy it myself this year, so we got some professionals in, and a great choice it was too. They did all the hard work, and I relaxed – no worries about whether things were cooked safely, an no worrying about equipment to clean and pack away afterwards.

If you fancy the same thing, try these guys : hog roasts … they did me proud.

If you are a keen cook and want to start your own recipe or cooking site, it is now easier than ever – and it can cost you nothing.

I set up a quick demo on my site at ‘The Cooks Pantry’

It used free hosting (from Sqweebs) and a free cms called Nanocms – all so easy to set up that a complete beginner could manage it.

Why not give it a go?

Its not all doom and gloom though.

Sadly for restauranteurs, but happily for the rest of us, people are starting to cook ‘proper’ meals at home again.

Previously, large sections of the population ate junk food and TV dinners at home and went out to enjoy a ‘proper meal’ – but not any more.
People are now opening there recipe books or searching for recipes online (try this collection of free recipes) and preparing tasty and nutritious meals at home.

Not only that, but they are finding it is far easier to cook than they first thought, far cheaper, and far more nutritious.

No offence to restauranteurs, but lets hope it continues.

This will be a sort of womens portal with a womens blog built in – she has some interesting ideas, particularly when it comes to women’s politics, so give it a read.

Wordpress is very well suited to use as a CMS, there are some really nice plugins and templates that can emphasise the ‘CMS-ssy’ side of it over the blog, and it was real fun getting it together.

added:
She has just added a section on inexpensive wedding favor ideas – worth checking out if you are about to get married and need to save a bit of cash on the wedding reception.

I moved office and, due to a cash windfall decided to upgrade everything – office furniture, computers… everything.

Been a long time since I did anything like that – I used to order locally, but now we have e-bay
Although, I must confess, I didn’t first think of e-bay, I went searching on google for ‘home office furniture‘ and found an e-bay aggregator site (is that what they are called?), which collated e-bay results on one page – I found what I was looking for, and a whole lot more.

I ended up buying a new main desk, office tables & chairs and even a new coffee perculator – thats e-bay for you I guess – its a damn gold mine of temptingly priced gear.

Not sure where to go this year, I narrowed it down to a villa in Portugal (The Algarve), Barbados or Menorca.

The Algarve is particularly interesting to me, as I have been there before and had the holiday of a lifetime.

I stayed in a villa in Vale do Lobo, but this time I fancy one of these villas in Vilamoura or Almancil, both have a good mix of vacation essentials – near to the nice rural portuguese countryside, great beaches and excellent nightlife!

A villa in Carvoeiro is also an option, there are some gorgeous looking villas at ‘Holiday Villas Algarve’.

Well, somewhere like those places anyway – depends on the price of the flight out there I guess – which pretty much rules out Barbados.