Thanks for the blog. I love durian. You really must be a durian lover to do a whole trip around durian!

I love those things! When I first got them, years ago, I was disappointed when the foliage collapsed overnight, but I didn't realize that that's part of the life cycle; we all have spells like that! & the beauty & blueness of those flowers is worth any amount of flattened foliage!

Like others, I have a stack that high (and growing) of "to try" recipes. I currently have a stack of about five or six sitting by my grocery list. I intend to make all of those over the next few weeks, then replenish the pile. I keep the ones that turn out good in a binder in sheet protector sleeves to make again and I throw away the ones I didn't like, simoultaneously deleting them from my computer. The only one I can remember off the top of my head from that short stack is a chedder cheese studded meatloaf which sounds quite good. Oh! and a Greek dish where you cook the tomatoes and onions and garlic and spices, then add 5 cups of broth and then the pasta. The pasta and sauce all cook together. I can't remember what it's called but I'm looking forward to trying that. I also do want to make spanikopita, watching Sue's video made it look fairly simple. But I have to make sure there will be lots of people around who will want to eat it (think party) so that I don't gobble up the whole thing myself!

I used to play this for hours and hours a few years ago...then one day I got this message and haven't been able to play since! I loved it too! Unable to Connect to Server Explanation: In order to play, the Java applet must open a network connection to our servers. The applet was unable to open this connection. This could occur if you are trying to connect through your company's firewall. Other things that might cause this error are that our servers may be temporarily down or that one of our other systems is currently unavailable. This problem might also be caused by Internet connectivity problems. How to Fix the Problem: There may be the possibility that one or more of our servers are not running. We typically try to keep the server downtime for maintenance and upgrades to under 15 minutes, and we apologize for the inconvenience. If you don't think that it's a server issue, then there are several things that could have gone wrong: The server just started up and is still initializing. Try playing the game again to see if you are able to connect. There is a network problem that is preventing you from reaching the game server. If you know how to use traceroute, you can try to find where the problem in the network is. Otherwise, you should try to play again later. Sometimes, major routing points have glitches in their systems that cause intermittent outages. If the problem persists for 24 hours, you should contact your network administrator or ISP for support. You are located behind a firewall or proxy server. If you are located behind a firewall or proxy server, you will not be able to play the game. The firewall/proxy is preventing the applet from connecting with the server (that is what the firewall is designed to do). This is typically what happens if you try to play from work. All you can do in this case is to play the game from an account that is not behind the firewall (for example, a home account instead of a work account). EA.com Pogo.com is a great place to play free online games, game downloads, flash games, and multiplayer games. © 2008 Electronic Arts Inc. Trademarks belong to their respective owners. All rights reserved.