TWICE THE TEMPERATURE, HALF THE TIME^TM!

Catchy, isn’t it? But what does it mean? Why, I appreciate you asking! Let me explain.

It’s simple, really. Anyone who has completed junior high math, or can at least operate a calculator, can apply this principle. In order to cook foodstuffs, one puts said foodstuffs in the oven at a certain temperature for a certain amount of time. Thus the formula for cooked food is:

number of degrees  x  time in minutes  =  cooked food   (also written as    n^d  x  t  =  cf)

Let’s say you have a roast you’d like to cook for supper, but you don’t want to wait an hour and a half for it to cook. So you whip out your calculator and apply the TWICE THE TEMPERATURE, HALF THE TIME^TM principle.

An average roast cooks at 325º for 90 minutes. So if you set your oven (or kiln, whatever the case may be) for twice 325º (which would be 650º), the roast will only need half of the 90 minutes (which would be 45 minutes) to cook. Wonderful!

Let’s look at the scientific explanation for this roast-cooking phenomenon.

Old-fashioned cooking method:

325º  x  90 minutes  =  29,250

New-fangled cooking method:

650º  x  45 minutes  =  29,250

There you have it, folks- scientific proof that TWICE THE TEMPERATURE, HALF THE TIME^TM really works! As you can see, the same number of degrees is applied to your meat, but in half the time. Voilà! The TWICE THE TEMPERATURE, HALF THE TIME^TM principle makes your life more efficient, one supper at a time!

*Letters of adoration and generous monetary contributions to fund my cooking show are graciously accepted.

*The Great F is not responsible for any illness acquired due to food poisoning or salmonella.

*This principle is a trademark of the Get Rich Quick Schemes Department of Great F Unlimited.

Ahem … But such an undertaking cannot be done without a lot of careful planning. Our first priority was, of course, to play mind games with our dear friend. This entailed telling Steph we were doing something for her birthday, not tell her what that something was, and then make a concerted effort to make her worry about it. *evil grin*

I made her a nice ransom note that read “StEPh—wE kNoW abOUT the biRThdaY. yOU WoN’T geT AwAY wiTh It. BwA-hA-Ha-ha-HA.”

Brian and Mike wrote some lovely email haiku, including:

What plans lie ahead?
Nothing but time can tell that
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Tar and feathers? Worse!!
Birthday cakes with rocks? Better!!
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

It’s your destiny,
It is unavoidable
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

And our personal favorite:

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha

Mel waxed philosophical:

A Birthday Formula for deep consideration: by Anonymous Party-goer

Birthday + Friends + Party = Good Birthday
Three holes we all can fall in:

Birthday + Friends – Party = Cheap Friends
Birthday + Party – Friends = Lonely Birthday
Birthday – Friends – Party = Travesty

One slight deviant off the Good Birthday…
Party + Friends – Birthday = Procrastinating, or perhaps simply impish Friends

Brian gave me a simply brilliant idea, in which I sent Steph link to a website renting out dunking tanks. A little while later, I emailed her back and said I really meant to send her a link to a picture of fuzzy kittens and that I hoped I hadn’t frightened her.

Steph was sufficiently worried, much to our delight.

So on Saturday morning, Steph arrived at my apartment. I answered the door wearing a trench coat and sunglasses and handed her a clue.

Me: “Agent Lucky, get in position. ETA 15 minutes.”

Steph successfully cracked the code and figured out the clue. It led us to Red Robin out on Woodruff Road, where we found her friend Rachel, waiting with a balloon and another clue.

This one led to P.F. Chang’s Chinese Bistro. where we found Brian, sitting under the giant horse statue and listening to his IPod.

He gave Stephanie a clever “Haiclu” to solve. Part of it read:

Perhaps you like clues,
Although I think that you don’t.
Nice time we’re having.

Eat bread with your friends,
Read stuff online with coffee.
Atlanta? Uh no!

You’ll notice that the first letters of the lines spell out “Panera,” as in Panera Bread, where we found Rebecca waiting with an evil “get the people across the river on the raft with impossibly hard conditions” puzzle on the Internet. And Steph actually solved it—and fast! (I tried a few times and couldn’t do it, so either Steph’s really smart, or I’m really … uh … wow, Steph sure is smart!)

The next stop was Barnes & Noble, in which Steph had a mini scavenger-hunt-within-a-scavenger-hunt, in which the names of certain authors and titles of books led her to spell out the next clue, leading us to Mike in the Snack Shop.

Mike had an unassembled puzzle of a deceptively cute baby polar bear licking his cute little paws. But when we assembled the puzzle, we found a hidden reference leading us to Performance Hall.

At Perf Hall, we were accosted by two suspicious-looking people (Mel and Vanessa) in trenchcoats and sunglasses.

Mel handed the tormented birthday girl a final poem:

On Elusive Parties and Partiers

You seek us here, you seek us there.
You seek your party, you don’t know where.
You’re gaining friends along the way.
(You’ve let them know that they will pay.)

Your birthday came. Your birthday went.
But there’s still some birthday to be spent.
For nothing more do friends enjoy
Then plotting plots and scheming ploys.

Solve this riddle, and use your brain.
Fix the cube without going insane.
It will lead to a place of rest,
Of cake and party, of no more tests.

All Steph had to do then was solve a Rubik’s cube! … (or just unscramble the letters I’d taped onto it.) (Mel, by the way, knows the secret of how to solve the cube, so she gets like 5 and a half cool points).

The letters spelled out “Pavilion,” where Steph finally found her party and could finally relax without having her brain taxed and tested! Steph passed every test! See how she grins in triumph!!

The best part of the whole party, for me anyway, was seeing my best friend have a good time.
The SECOND best part is that the whole scheme actually worked!! I was quite afraid someone would be left stranded at a restaurant, or have to wait for an hour, or get attacked by wild possums on the way to the next location … any number of things could have gone wrong. So hurrah for a successful party, and hurrah for my new vow never to attempt another birthday this complicated ever! Ah-haha!

ç<ç Anyway, this is her brilliant idea that never caught on<ñ ª€<’¡¿ ö :

Rental Floss

Really, we can´t figure out why this business has not taken off. <if you are interested in procuring said floss, please contact my sister.

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