Sweden plans to put little red cottage on the moon:

Not content with having them dotted all over the countryside, Sweden is now considering putting a little red cottage on the moon.

The idea, first conjured up by the artist Mikael Genberg seven years ago, may become reality with the help of the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), according to N24.

The state agency SSC has carried out a technical study showing that it is indeed possible to put a little red cottage on the moon.

"If we manage to do this Sweden will be the third country to occupy the moon", said SSC's Fredrik von Schéele.

A competition has been arranged for students to construct a little red house that is suitably sized for placement by a moon landing device. The construction may not exceed eight square metres and can weigh a maximum of four kilos.

Inflatable, that is, as Four Corners makes clear (The future is near: First house on the Moon):

Inflatable shell

By tradition cottages in Sweden are built of wood but the moon cottage will be constructed of a very light weight material and be both collapsible and inflatable.

'The cottage is really a machine designed for landing on the moon. The moon-landing-machine will fly "as usual" to the moon and during the journey different scientific experiments will be carried out. Thereafter the machine lands on the moon and is covered by an inflatable shell which will make it look like a detailed house', says Fredrik Bruhn from The Ångström Space Technology Centre (ÅSTC), one of the organisations involved.

The inflatable house will be made from a material that hardens under the influence of ultraviolet light, which comes directly from the sun. 'When our spherical robots roll around the house and film the moon landing machine will actually be inside the house but won't be visible', says Fredrik Bruhn.
click here to see bigger picture of spherical robot

Fredrik Bruhn also explains that apart from being a very interesting challenge for (ÅSTC) to develop the inflatable house, the project is also a unique opportunity for them to show off their spherical robot .

So even though this is an art project in Mikael Genberg's mind it is also a big challenge for scientists...

This is a grand idea. Homey human architecture on the moon. When aliens land, they'll see evidence that humans bridged the gulf, and offer shelter to others. When we look at the moon, we'll know this house is there. Boggling.

Playing for keeps: As weird goes, that cottage is so much funkier than a Yankee pitcher dying when his plane crashes into a Manhattan building. You can't make this stuff up.

Recalling a now eerie conversation by Alan Schwarz, a column at ESPN:

About three weeks ago, I was talking with Cory Lidle about his newest hobby, flying. My tape recorder was off. Cory and I chatted about a lot of things over the years. Playing poker. Shooting pool. His newest cell phone. We even occasionally talked about baseball. But not that often. Similar ages, similar hobbies; whenever we ran into each other in Oakland or Philly or now in New York, we'd jabber about anything but work. On this afternoon, in the Yankees clubhouse, we started talking about his new Cirrus SR20.

"You want to go up with me?" he asked.

I was a little flummoxed at the offer but intrigued enough to see if he was serious. He was.

"Where do you live?" he asked me, knowing I lived in Manhattan.

"Upper East Side," I said. "90th and Third."

"Dude" -- Cory was from Southern California -- "you should really come up with me. We can fly right past your apartment building. You've never seen Manhattan 'til you've flown right up the East River. It's beautiful. We can do it one day before a game..."

Video from The New Yorker: Steve Martin interviews longtime cartoonist Roz Chast, at right, -- who attended RISD once upon a time.

I'm so down: Cox Cable can send me marketing emails, why can't they notify me of a planned data outage from midnight to 5 a.m.? Just as I was about to push the button on this post a few minutes before midnight, I'm offline.

All the phone lines were busy at the help desk. When I finally reached a human -- in Ohio -- she said a lot of people were down, and were asking her why Cox couldn't have sent an email last night that this was coming so they could have planned for it.

Cheery commercials don't make up for being kept in the dark about an outage they had scheduled.

I couldn't save this post to my Web-based blog software, so I copied it to a textfile and tried to read, waiting for the Web to come back up.

I need a backup Net connection.

Detached football Sunday: The Pats have a bye week, so we get to gather and palaver, without the tension.

Your choices:
Sunday, 1 P.M.

New York Giants at Atlanta Falcons, Fox
Houston Texans at Dallas Cowboys, CBS

4 p.m.

Miami Dolphins at New York Jets, CBS

8 P.M.

Oakland Raiders at Denver Broncos, NBC

Forget the name: Buckeye cheesecake is game-day dessert. The Cincinnati Post garnishes this with candies the resemble "the glossy, dark-brown buckeyes that fall from buckeye trees in the Buckeye State," but doesn't tell how to make them.

It also took me a while to figure out why this recipe is part of a cheesecake brochure available at the Ohio Poultry Association, (It calls for four OHIO eggs.) Just look at the photo, read the ingredients, and preheat the oven.

Buckeye Cheesecake

1 (8x8-inch pan size) package brownie mix
3 (8-oz.) packages cream cheese, softened
1 (14-oz.) can sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated milk)
1 (10-oz.) package peanut butter chips, melted
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons butter-flavored shortening (or butter!)
Yield: 10 to 12 servings

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare brownie mix according to package directions. Spoon batter in a greased 9-inch springform pan. Bake 20 minutes. Cool. Reduce oven temperature to 325.

In large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in the sweetened condensed milk. Mix in the melted peanut butter chips, eggs and vanilla. Pour filling over baked brownie. Place pan in a larger baking pan with 1-inch hot water . Bake at 325 degrees for 50 to 55 minutes or until center is almost set. Turn oven off; remove baking pan with water. Let cheesecake cool in oven 30 minutes. Remove cheesecake from oven; chill 1 hour. Remove side from pan. Melt chocolate chips with shortening; stir smooth. Spread this glaze over top and sides of cheesecake. Chill 3 hours. Garnish with buckeyes.

Okay, here are some "buckeye" recipes. this one sounds good to me, but it includes graham crackers, so it's not traditional. The classics seem to break down into "with flour" and "without flour."