It took months of consideration and reflection, but finally the decision was made.

I’d been in the market for a jaffle maker from as far back as a year and a half ago, and then just as I was about to finally buy some silver space-age double-barrelled thing, they released a machine in the shape of a cow. White with black cow splodges, vacant bovine face, a pink udder underneath. And it really threw me.

Do you understand? That whole inner turmoil that designers sometimes experience (not to be confused with indigestion from eating a malcalculated combination of sugary snacks) over form versus function was achingly clear – the ache coming mainly, I suspect, from my stomach panging at the prospect of a further delay in the arrival of a crunchy golden jaffle.

Part of this debate (just between all my inner voices) was the “productivity/value for money question”: do you pay $40 for a machine that makes you 2 sandwiches at a time, or $50 that makes you one but looks like a cow?

And then just as I decided that it had to be the cow… it stopped being sold. Now everywhere I looked, there were jaffle makers in the shape of zany brown dogs. Feh. The jaffle dream ground to a halt, and I ate marinated artichokes on toast for a while.

But not two weeks ago, I stumbled upon a stack of the cow-shaped jaffle makers in one of those happy homemaker-type megastores. All the crunchy golden feelings were rekindled, and soon I was walking home with a box that said “Moo” under my arm.

This morning I made my inaugural jaffle. It was filled with creamed corn, which was damn tasty, but at that temperature, also damn lethal. Note to self: steaming creamed corn shooting out of a jaffle makes a brilliant projectile weapon. Just try to keep the pale yellow arc aiming *away* from your mouth.
 
I got the best fanmail ever the other day, from Sweden no less, and dammit, it makes my slack mutha lifestyle all worthwhile:

“hi nice stuff on your page there 
i was looking for some porn (hehe) 
but somehow i stumbled over your exelent page.. 
just wanned to say that.. 
id would had bought some of it, but im broke.. 
my spelling sucks mayor…”

It’s gonna be wonderful.

Yay.

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before i had a “blog”, i used to write a sporadically updated letter on the front page of my website. this is one of them. i am consolidating it into these archives, because i can.