Karen's HXTML Class Website - Week 3

Forgetfulness

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read, never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses good-bye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Billy Collins

The pre tags seem to be particularly good for things like
copying and pasting from other sources and retaining their 
formatting.  They would also work very well for poetry or 
recipes, for instance, whether typed line by line by hand 
or copied and pasted from elsewhere.  Have you ever copied
and pasted a poem or a recipe into a discussion board, for
example, and then seen that the result was totally run 
together? The pre tag would prevent that and would also 
prevent having to go back and put in the break code at the
end of every single line.

The pre code is also nice to prevent things from getting
narrower or wider, so the formatting stays the same
regardless of which browser is being used, or the size 
of the screen.  This could be good or bad. You can observe 
the result by making this window smaller and then dragging
in a side.  Notice that text that is not preformatted keeps
changing but pre-formatted text stays just as it was.

I also rather like the default of non-proportional spacing
for instances where you might want to set off the text and
have it stand out as "different" from the other text.

Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Sugar is sweet,
And so are you!

Las rosas son rojas,
Las Violetas azul,
El asucar es dulce,
Y tambien tu.

Shepherd's Pie

2 cups cooked chopped meat 
1 tablespoon finely chopped onion 
    (I saute mine with the meat)
2 cups gravy 
    (I use 2 pkgs of instant brown gravy mix.)
2 or 4* cups mashed potato, prepared with milk and seasonings as desired 
    (I use instant garlic mashed potatoes).
salt and pepper 
1/8 teaspoon paprika 
    (forget it if you don't have it...not enough to make a difference,
    anyway, and it's more for color than flavor. Use Hungarian paprika!)
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 cup or so each of frozen or canned peas, green beans, and sweet corn
    (leave out what you dont like).

Combine meat, gravy, and chopped onion; season with salt and pepper to taste. 
Line the bottom of a buttered oblong baking pan with a layer of half of the
seasoned mashed potatoes. Add meat mixture then cover with remaining mashed
potatoes. Or, meat and gravy can be put in the baking dish first then topped
with all of the mashed potatoes (*in which case,you only need two cups). Dot
mashed potato topping with butter, sprinkle with salt, pepper, and Hungarian
paprika, then bake for about 30 minutes at 400�, or until potato topping is
browned and the Shepherd's pie is thoroughly heated.

Some folks don't put potatoes on the bottom... but if you do, they turn brown
and crispy and add a nice texture and flavor to the pie.