Whats a Meal without a dessert

I found this recipe from a friend. Great on a spring night

Mini Carrot Cupcakes.
For the Topping: Candied Carrots
1 medium carrot
3/4 cups granulated sugar

For the Cupcakes:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1 1/2 cups grated carrots
2/3 cup vegetable oil or olive oil
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract. ( I also like to use almond extract)

For the Frosting:
I would suggest making the Frosting 1 day in advance to let all the flavors come together. Keep in airtight container in refrigeration.

1. Make the Topping: Peel long ribbons from the carrot using a vegetable peeler, then slice the ribbons lengthwise into 1/4-inch-wide strands(you'll need about 48).
2. Preheat the over to 250 degrees. Bring the granulated sugar and 3/4 cup water to a simmer in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the carrot strands and simmer until soft, about 10 minutes. Drain and cool slightly. Arrange the strands in squiggles on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake until dry, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool completely.
3. Make the cupckaes: Raise the oven temperature to 350 degrees. Line two 24-cup mini-muffin pans with paper liners. Put the flour, almonds, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and allspice in a food processor and pule the nuts are finely ground.
4. Whisk the grated carrots, vegetable oil, granulated sugar, eggs and vanilla in a large bowl until combined. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined. Divide among the mini-muffin cups, filling each three-quarters of the way. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a rack and let cool 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the pans to cool completely.
5. Meanwhile, make the frosting: Beat the confectioners' sugar, cream cheese and butter with a mixer until fluffy.(Make sure the butter and cream cheese is at room temperature, This means let them sit out for at least 2 hours). Beat in the lemon juice and almond extract. Pipe or spread on the cupcakes. Top with candied carrots.

Condiment

Now that spring has arrived it seems like every other weekend i'm on the grill with either friends or family.
Here are some great toppings to help dress up your burgers, hot dogs and more.

Corn-Tomato Relish
-2 chopped green tomatoes,
-1/2 cup cooked corn, chopped white union, and seeded cucumber(Almost all cucumber at grocery stores come seeded so you shouldn't have a problem find this),
-2 tablespoons each chopped parsley, yellow mustard and cider vinegar.

Also a great substitute for the mustard is Horseradish.

Mix and serve.

Buffalo Greek Relish
Mix 1 cup each crumbled feat cheese and diced celery, 1/4 cup diced red onion, 2 tablespoons each chopped celery leaves and mayonnaise, and 2 teaspoons hot sauce.

Heinz Sweet Relish, 26-Ounce Squeeze Bottles (Pack of 9)

Saturday Trends, Stat and News

BOL Sportsandodds

One for you
Love Someone by Dub-fx


Play UNDER TAMPA BAY on the total in Home games when play against a team with a losing record
The Record is 11 over and 3 Unders for the last two season (+24.75 units)

Play AGAINST CHICAGO CUBS using the Money Line in Home games after a win
The record is 14 Wins and 32 Losses for the last two seasons (-27.50 units)

Play AGAINST BALTIMORE using the Money Line in All games when playing against a team with a winning record
The Record is 2 Wins and 15 Losses this season (-13.30units)

Play ON CLEVELAND using the Money Line in Home games after a win
The record is 10 Wins and 1 Losses this season (+10.70 units)


Play AGAINST CHICAGO CUBS using the Run Line in Home games after a win
The record is 11 Wins and 35 Losses for the last two season (-26.40 units)


Play ON CLEVELAND using the Money Line in Home games after a win
The record is 30 wins and 14 Losses for the last two season (+20.40 units)


Play OVER KANSAS CITY on the Total in All games against division opponents
The Record is 58 Overs and 29 Unders for the last two seasons (+27.85 units)

Play AGAINST ARIZONA using the Money Line in Road games against division opponents
The record is 9 Wins and 36 Losses for the last two season (-23.95 units)


Play UNDER BALTIMORE on the Total in All games in games played in a dome
The record is 1 Overs and 12 Unders for the last two season (+10.95 units)

Gonna try something different

lets see how this works....

Lets Go Nationals

The nationals are a surprise this year. A gritty ball club that puts players on base and plays fundamental baseball. I was doing some research and found some pretty intriguing stuff. Nationals have played the toughest schedule in MLB according to Elias Sport Bureau. Nationals opponents have combine on a .547 win percentage. Which means, there current record is fair considering who they have played. Will there be more in store for nationals fans down the season? I think so. Playing tough baseball and and keeping a .500 record maybe a good thing. 25 of Washington's 37 contests this season have come against clubs with winning records.

As I say this the nationals just tied up the marlins, 4-4, in the bottom of the 4th.

Nationals lost 6-5 in extra innings

Nice One

Eminem - Just Loose it (Clean)


Disco Best of the 80's Remix

Friday Trends, Stats, and News

BOL. Scoresandodds

Play UNDER TAMPA BAY on the total in Home games when playing against a team with a losing record
The record is 11 over and 36 Unders for the last two season (+23.75units)

Play UNDER BALTIMORE on the Total in All Games after 3 or more consecutive wins
The record is 3 Overs and 18 Unders for the last two season (14.60 units)

Play OVER DETROIT on the Total in All games after 3 or more consecutive wins
The record is 22 Overs and 6 Unders for the last two seasons (+15.90 units)

Play AGAINST BALTIMORE using the Run Line in All gams when playing a against a team with a winning
The record is 3 Wins and 14 Losses for the season (-14.70 units)

Play OVER KANSAS CITY on the total in All games against division opponents
The Record is 58 overs and 28 Unders for the Last two seasons (+28.85 units)

Play OVER ST LOUIS on the Total in Road Games in night games
The record is 11 over and 1 Unders this season (+9.85 units)


Thanks to smokenjoke at covers.com. Everything to need to know for today's game.
Weather
Stat sheet
Line ups
Park factors-Espn.com
Umpire info--provided by statfox.com
Game Links
Mobile Trends, Stats, and Game Angles--provided by sportstap.com
More Stats, Game Angles, and Analysis--provided by sportpic.com

Interesting Tid-Bit - Against left handed pitched Dodgers are 4 out of 5 at home and 7 out of 10 overall.

How to Get Out of Your Own Way

What going On This weekend

Adele21 at the 9:30 club tonight, Thursday May 12.

Thursdays Trends, Stats, and News

BOL


Play AGAINST CHICAGO CUBS using the Money Line in Home games after a win
The record is 14 wins and 31 Losses for the last two season (-26.50 units)

Play AGAINST LA DODGERS  using the Run-Line ( +1.5) in All games as a road underdog when the run line is -190 to -160
The record is 14 Wins and 20 Losses for the last two season (22.75) units

Play OVER ARIZONA on the total in Road games after 3 or more consecutive losses
The record is 18 Over and 5 Unders the last two seasons (12.80 units)

Play AGAINST ARIZONA using the the Money Line in Road games against division opponents
The record is 9 Wins and 34 Losses for the last two seasons (-21.95 units)\

Play AGAINST CHICAGO CUBS using the Money Line in Home games against division opponents
The record is 19 Wins and 30 Losses for the last two season (-21.10 units)

The Last one contradicts the previous trend, but still just another good trend to keep in your arsenal

Play UNDER SAN FRANCISCO on the total in Home games against division opponents
The Record is 12 Overs and 30 Unders for the last two season (+16.70 units)

Thanks to smokenjoke at covers.com. Everything you need to know for today's game.
Weather
Stat sheet
Line-ups
ESPN Park factors
Umpire Info--provided by statfox.com
Game Link
Mobile score, trends, and stats--provided by sportstap.com
MORE Stats, Game Angles and Analysis--sportspic.com

You Can Bet On It!: Inside Secrets of Sports Betting from the Men Who Set the Line

Communication Accommodation Theory in an electronic environment

The link between communication and transportation was broken in 1844 when Samuel Morse opened the nation’s first telegraph line. No long was the speed of communication dependent on how fast a horse could gallop; information could travel instantaneously by means of wires from its point of origin to someone else. Since then our communication has evolved to a wireless society with portable telephones, cell phones, and mobile devices . These pieces of technology have become an ordinary part of our life in the United States. I chose a study by Burrel and Buzzannel in which they used Communication Accommodation Theory  to explain how and why telephone communication could accommodate to others.This research provides a foundation for explaining issues of relationship forming and communication accommodation in an electronic environment.

Burrel and Buzzanell (1996) research was conducted over a 12 week time frame during which students(callers) attempted to converge or diverage with their professors’ answering machine message(callee). Burrel and Buzzanell(1996),  chose an imbalanced power relationship because lower status individuals, such as students, often want to create positive impressions. One hundred and twenty-nine college student participated.

By using a variety of pretests and surveys, a panel of experts were able to create two distinct groups of messages, novel and routine messages. Then, 7 messages were created form these two distinct groups.  The script of each message consisted of 6 parts: (1) greeting, (2) home/office owner’s name and/or phone number, (3) unavailability to respond to incoming calls, (4) request for caller’s name and phone number, (5) promise to respond to caller’s message, and (6) closing (Buzzel, 1996).

Novel message were out-of-the-ordinary, or as departures from messages typically found in interactions common amongst people. The experts developed three general types of novel messages that differed from each other in the way that they deviated from the basic script: a humorous style(limerick); and abundance of jargon (jargonistic message); and a message requesting much more information, then would be expected routinely(high demand).

Next, the expert panel, created four routine answering machine messages by replicating the same steps used for novel message creation. These message were more ordinary and standard, they did not contain humorous  or jargonistic style scripted messages.

In their findings, Responses to messages that include either verbal politeness cues or structural politeness cues were significantly more polite, according to Burrel and Buzzanell, than responses to those messages that did not include such cues. Burrel maintains ,“that callers seemed to follow the callee’s lead for terms of address and closing, but not for greetings or signs of appreciation.”

Next the panel of exports recorded the lengths of each students message left on the professors answering machine . By calculating the length of messages from the callers’, experts could culminate a similarity or difference between the messages. According to Burrel (1996), there was a small, but statistically significant  association between these two variables indicating a tendency for callers to match the length of the answering machine message.

Following CAT theory and limited telephone theories, my study seeks to identify whether individuals accommodate to verbal politeness cues and structural politeness. My study posits that these cues can be found in telephone communication.

In my research I explored the content to which a caller accommodates to a pre-recorded structural message found on my answering machine. I recorded voice mails for over one week. I had a total of nine voicemails. Six people were involved in my experiment; my mother, brother, dad, two friends of mine, and my boss at Giant Food and Drug Store. I conducted the study on my own because I felt that if I told the participants what I was doing callers would attempt convergence, in terms of the responses. My results illustrate that individuals modify their language choices to display similarities with their partner. Callers modified their language choices as a direct result to their established relationship with me. The closer the relationship I had with someone the more intimate the message would have sounded and vice versa.

The observations that serve as the foundation for CAT are primarily bases on face-to-face interaction. However, different types of research support opposing impacts of this idea.

Some researches argue that telephones are less personal than face-to-face communication (e.g., Perry and Lee 2007), while other argue that personal information actually does pass though messaging communication, however it takes more time for individuals to adjust to the medium to allow this information to pass (e.g., Walther, 1992). While it is important that communication theories are considered in face-to-face settings, it is also important that these theories are considered in telephone communication settings as well.

            In conclusion, it is important to understand that telephone communication does not capture all the unique nuances and translate sound the way we would like them to carry. Mine and  Burrel and Buzzanell results indicate that, even in mediated communication exchanges where there are very few opportunities to converge, individuals still modify their language choices and some message features to display similarity with interaction partners. Therefore, we must elevate our awareness while communicating by phone. We must be more conscious as to how we convey our information and how does it reflect what we want to say as well as what the listener wants to hear and or can understand. Listening and communication are inseparable partners as we all attempt to convey our thoughts and ideas so that others may understand them.Communication Theories: Perspectives, Processes, and Contexts 

My crazy mom

Echo and the Bunnymen

Preforming Live at the 9:30 club tomorrow

Studying is So much Fun....

when you understand what your studying.....

Elementary Statistics (11th Edition)

Luke Hancock Staying at Mason

As much as I want to think Hancock is going away, I'm convinced he will stay.

Tonights Double Header

NBA: Chicago Bulls vs. Atlanta Hawks
MLB: Philadelphia Phillies vs. Atlanta Braves


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Today Quote

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

William Rogers (1879-1935)

My cat and I

I Love Cats