Today, I embarked on another bean dip creation adventure with a twist. A few nights ago, while I was wandering through a nearby King Soopers in the wee hours, I noticed that this particular store happened to have habanero peppers. I've tried on occassion in the past to locate fresh raw habaneros in random grocery stores, with little success. But this one had them! Must be a hit and miss thing.

So this morning, when I woke up, I was all set for bean dip making fun. Got the pintos cooking, and sat down to watch the Buffy marathon. (They happened to be showing Buffy season 2 this week on the Bitscape Central limited access cable channel. Very limited.)

I think habaneros should feature some sort of warning label: Do not handle with bare hands! I painstakingly chopped 4 of them up into tiny little pieces to dump into the magic mix. Initially, all was fine. But as the afternoon went on, I noticed that my hands felt a slight burning tingle, even after I washed them. Not enough to be painful, but still, it's a little strange to think about.

The bean dip itself turned out quite well this time. Those peppers definitely added the right kick. After they were in, I contemplated not even adding the jar of salsa as I usually do, but decided to do so anyway for extra random fun. It worked, but the kind of salsa I had this time wasn't as good. (They only have the good kind at Safeway, where I wasn't. The only place where you can get the really good kind is approximately 1000 miles southeast of here. Go figure.)

I also chopped up a couple of garlic cloves, which were good. Plus colby jack cheese, of the amount I could convince myself I could afford, which is less than the ideal. Yummy cheese.

People have occassionally asked me what my recipe is for bean dip. To which I have to respond, "I can't give it to you." It's not that I'd have to kill you if I did, but it's just... there is no recipe. I just keep adding stuff until it tastes right. A little different every time. That's the patented formula.

In a faint attempt to relive recreate the magical wonder that used to be a radio station known as 102.1X, I've been using my currently preferred P2P client to find and download a few of the songs I can remember. I've had moderate success.

The biggest stumbling block is my own brain, which only can remember bars from a few of the most memorable songs that they played most often. The fan-assembled playlist that was once online has since been taken down. Not even google's cache has it anymore. But I still remember in a few words of this tune and that, faintly floating around in my head. When I do, google astutely gives me the artist and title. Limewire does the rest.

Anybody who says music sharing discourages record sales is an idiot. Without having planned to, I found myself tempted enough that I placed an order for a disc full of awesome music. (The parts I've sample are awesome, at least. Given the artist's track record (no pun intended), I'm sure I will also love the rest.)

I know, I'm such a sucker for this stuff. But it's good. It's really good.

I think maybe I'll do a little more collective coding now, or at least ponder the practicality of a few ideas. I find myself inspired in that direction as of late. We'll see how much of it comes to fruition...