Marble Slab ice cream

I recently went to one of those fancy ice cream shops that mix toppings into the ice cream as you watch – the ones that sell you an ice cream cone for $7.50. (Fortunately I had a gift card. Thanks Sam!) I ordered a White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl.

And I must say, it was actually quite good. The first thing I noticed was that the ice cream on the cone was quite soft. So instead of licking it, you suck chunks of it into your mouth. Quite nice. And because the ingredients are mixed in, you find yourself chewing on various tasty bits (chunks of raspberry, almonds, and caramel in my case). Yum.

So I think I will get another $7.50 Marble Slab ice cream cone sometime. And maybe even again when the gift card runs out. But instead of the White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl (which I found a bit too fruity and tart – what did I expect?), I'll probably go for something along more chocolatey lines – like Peanut Butter Crunch, Rocky Road, or Cookie Dough Drizzle.

Have you tried boutique ice cream?


The White Chocolate Raspberry Swirl was intense. Photo from marbleslab.com.

Shrook - free RSS reader for Mac

I am a longtime user of Google Reader for reading my RSS feeds, but that delay of a couple of seconds while waiting for a feed or a folder of feeds to load – I know it's nothing, but it gets annoying. So I started looking around for a desktop feedreader for Mac, to give me instant response when I click a feed or a folder of feeds.

In the reviews, Shrook kept popping up again and again. This is a free program for Mac that's been around for a number of years. Everyone says it is ugly: "Evidently Shrook's founders are function over form types" "The user interface however, is the worst I’ve seen in a while!" "beneath this ugly carcass lies a beautiful app". It's good enough for me, and it seems to work well.

Below is a 3 minute screencast I made showing Shrook and why I like it. Click the icon in the lower-right to make it full screen.

Horlicks drink

Tonight I tried Horlicks for the first time. It was at a late night Chinese restaurant. I asked for Ovaltine, but they said they ran out. They said they did have "Horlicks" though. "What's that taste like?" "It's...uh..." "It doesn't have caffeine right?" "Right." "OK, I'll take the Horlicks."

It's alright - it's kind of weird. It's kind of like weak Ovaltine, with a definite barley-like undertaste. It was also quite cheap ($1.50). I may order it again in the future, if only for the cheapness factor.

Horlicks is evidently a big thing in India.