The Argonian Power Movement

Remember that election that decent citizens voted in back in November? Well the folks in Minnesota still don’t know who won their senate race. The race has gone to an automatic recount since the two main candidates (Norm Coleman and Al Franken) are less than 200 votes apart.

But who cares about those jackasses. The real story is about the exciting write-in candidates. NPR has coverage about how arduous the recount has been and how each side challenges every vote that the other gets. Anyone who remembers the Bush vs. Gore election probably has a good idea of what’s going on. Here is one of the actual ballots that are being contested!



Who knew that the lizard people had an active political party in Minnesota!? As a huge supported of lizard people, or Argonians as they are officially known, I am thrilled to see them making a power grab in the North Star State.

This ballot was initially thrown out for “over voting” since the voter filled in the circle by Franken’s name and wrote in “Lizard People.” But obviously this is just a cheap political trick to deprive the Lizard People of votes. Not for Senator, obviously, but in all the other races. While I won’t say I agree with their choice, this particular voter obviously voted for Al Franken. (Why vote for Al when you can have an Argonian!?!?) They were merely including the Lizard People in the group of people running for senate. As the rest of the ballot clearly indicates, the voter was more than capable of writing in “Lizard People” and filling in the circle when they indented to vote for Lizard People.

I suspect that the reason this vote was thrown out is the two party system feels threatened by a third scaly party of bipedal reptiles with super human strength. Well not me. I fully support all Argonians running for office. I would love to volunteer for their organizations by knocking stuff off tables, tail whipping potential votes, installing public sun rocks, or what have you.

My eye are open now people. It’s time we greet our salmonella bearing politicians with open arms and our full electoral support.

Dismissible Curmudgeon Rant

I just opened the latest version of Bon Appetite and spent the next few minutes swearing and throwing away little cardstock mailers that fall out of magazines like dandruff. I hate them. And I hate the magazine for including them. I would gladly pay an extra fee for each magazine if I didn’t have to deal with all the crap that falls out of it. Even magazines like Cuisine at Home and Cook’s Illustrated which claim to be ad-free are infested with the damnable cardstock hell spawn. Has anyone actually saved one of those and sent them in? (If so, you’re part of the problem. Hang your head in shame).

Dawn says she would gladly pay an extra fee to receive fashion magazines without fragrance samples. No wonder either… each one of those magazines reeks to high heaven.

I was tempted to make the claim that I get upset when the advertising in my media distracts from the content. But I don’t think that’s the case, or rather, that is just more of a symptom. I think as I get older I become ever less tolerant of whatever crazy thing I decide is irritating me and think I should be able to buy my way out of it. I suppose that I am the ultimate product of a consumer based economy.

Thinking back I seem to remember going on a rant after the last time Dawn and I bought airline tickets. We were picking out the seats and I was distressed that the back corner of the plane was already taken. While I often complain about sitting in the back of the plane because of the noise, and having to stare at the crotches of people waiting to use the lavatory, and the fact that you are literally the last person off the plane when trying to make a connection, I kind of like that you limit the number of people that can sit around you. In the middle of the plane you are exposed on all sides. In the back of the plane, in a two person row, there are only two people sitting in front of you and one person next two you across the aisle. That guarantees that a small kid will not be kicking my seat the entire trip….plus the odds of having to sit next to a baby are drastically reduced.

I believe I was telling Dawn that I thought that airlines ought to offer to charge a fee to guarantee you will not sit next to a minor. When people buy tickets they have to reveal whether or not they are traveling with a minor. I haven’t looked up the statistics, but I think that most passengers aren’t minors, so the odds are pretty good that I won’t have to sit next to a minor….but I’m willing to pay an extra $5 to take the odds from pretty good to really good. I thought it seemed like a good deal for the airline companies. In most cases they won’t have to do anything to collect and extra $5 fee. And they like fees. All they really have to do is invent a new color of seat to show that some seat options are restricted to people not traveling with minors…which is the majority of travelers (I suspect).

Dawn pointed out that it would cause logistical issues when the plane started to get full and the airline wouldn’t want the bad press of kicking little kids of off planes. I’m a reasonable (if not intolerant) guy. I acknowledge the fact that they need to serve people with kids too. My solution was that if I paid $5 to not sit next to a kid (and I’m talking left, right, front and back seats) and they place a kid there then the airline company refund me $20. I think it’s a good solution. It doesn’t tie the hands of the airline company in the situation of a full plane, and at the same time acknowledges that seating a kid next to me is suboptimal and gives me a $15 “we’re sorry” when it invariable happens.

Whoa, where did that come from? I guess I’ve been storing up my curmudgeon delusional ranting.

Oh, how you people disappoint me.

I used to think that knitters were industrious people. I marveled at how they were able to capture the quiet moments in between events in their day and transform them in knitwear goods. I was impressed by their seemingly literal interpretation of the saying “idle hands are the devil’s tools.” Oh, how I used to respect and marvel at their commitment to efficiency and productivity.

Of course after seeing Christen Meindertsma’s work I now realize what a lazy bunch of underachievers knitter really are… and I’m not just talking about the social trend knitters, knitting one day, quitting the next. Even the hardcore thug knitters 4 life folks have been diminished in my eyes. You see, I’ve had my expectations adjusted.

If you’re not working on room-sized project then you’re not really knitting. Give it rest already slackers. If you're not ready to step up to the big game put the needles away. The devil needs to get some work done.

They'll Never Read L337

Dawn and I were listening to the radio on Saturday and a story came on about a telephone interpreter. People call her when they need someone to translate between English and Spanish. She specializes in medical terminology and is often used by people in hospitals to communicate symptoms or medical directions.

One of the stories she was sharing was about a pair of teenaged parents who just had a new born baby. When a nurse visited them at their house she found the baby wrapped up in all sorts of clothes even though it was sweating. She used the telephone interpreter to ask them why they had dressed the baby up so thoroughly in such sweltering heat. Their answer was that was how baby Jesus was dressed. Solid logic there.

The nurse told the couple that they needed to monitor the temperature of the baby since it had a fever. The couple revealed that they were illiterate. The nurse said they just needed to use a thermometer. The couple reiterated that they illiterate and were unable to even read numbers. The nurse was flabbergasted. The rest of the story is unimportant.

So here’s what surprised me - there were people who couldn’t read numbers. I get being unable to read words – that involves bundling together letters into words and making sense out of them. I even get being mathematically literate…but reading numbers? It seems like the chances to associate the symbols with natural numbers are so numerous that it’s bound to happen if you’re alive and conscious for twenty years. I would think you should at least recognize the symbols for the first ten integers if you’re counting or have ever bought anything with money.

What surprised me even more is the casual way in which Dawn acknowledged that such people exist, and that their existence was less than surprising. She was blasé about it. I was gob smacked. Have you ever known anyone who couldn’t recognize a number I asked? She said didn’t know anyone, but that was hardly proof that such an individual should be surprising. I tried to point out all the different ways that a person would likely become accustomed to numbers and she casually swatted them away. She was unmoved. I grew increasingly more agitated with her stance that people could be completely oblivious to counting and symbols. She argued that they would just stop trying, that numbers would be noise in their environment. I don’t buy it.

So am I underestimating the lack of cognitive ability of my fellow man? Has anyone heard of such a thing as someone who cannot recognize numbers? Is Dawn right (yet again)? I sure hope not. I prefer people that cool and self-assured about their stance to be dead wrong.

A cat of privilege

I wonder if Riblet ever sits around and marvels at what she’s achieved. I doubt it.

She started out life, as far as I know, as a chubby cat in an Indiana Petsmart. I have no idea what her pre-Petsmart history is – and neither does Petsmart – they lost her documents. The papers they gave us belonged to a completely different cat which the vet (that was referenced in the papers) kindly told us. Riblet won’t tell us how she ended up in Petsmart, but I harbor a dark suspicion she was kicked out of her previous home for being an evil, grumpy, mommy hater. Just a guess.

Perhaps the fake cat documents Petsmart provided us are like a fake passport. Riblet adopted a false identity and decided to start a new life, the cat equivalent of the witness protection program or being an undercover spy. Whatever the case may be, in her time with us, Riblet has developed a taste for the finer things in life. A few of years ago she discovered electric blankets; a deep and instant bond was formed. Anything that provides warmth and a soft sleeping surface is ok in Riblet’s book (mommy laps need not apply).

Just a year or so ago Riblet discovered memory-foam beds. Once she got the knack that the bed would actually contour and form to her - she was hooked. Often she will purr with glee that “the mattress remembers me!” Dawn will try and correct her and tell her that’s not why it’s called memory foam, but Riblet will opt for unconsciousness and ignore her mom’s explanations. Sometimes Dawn says stuff.

Recently Riblet has discovered cashmere. Dawn had an old cashmere sweater that developed a hole in it that she donated to one of Riblet’s beds. At first Riblet wanted nothing to do with the mommy reeking bedding. Once the distasteful remembrances of Dawn dissipated Riblet gave the cashmere bedding a try in earnest. The verdict? Oh My Gawd… Riblet loves cashmere. She spends a minimum of 45 minutes a day sitting in the bed and kneading her tiny little fists into the soft soft cashmere. This makes her a very happy cat indeed.

Last night Dawn and I started a fire. Before long we found Riblet sitting in my chair looking very pleased with herself. As if to say, “lounging in a leather club chair by a fire is something I was born to do.” Her manner betrayed not an air of gratitude for nice things we provide for her, but one of expectation and birthright. Riblet has ascended the ranks of feline destinies to a sheltered life of comfort and privilege, and the good life appears to suite her.

Head in the Clouds

I know what I want from a cell phone. Here’s a hint – iPhone it is not. Not that I’m knocking iPhone, it’s just that I dream bigger….and I don’t care how touch screeny a device is.

I want a cell phone connected to a cloud.

For explanatory purposes I’m going to describe my ideal cell phone tied into Google technology…because it’s a popular cloud that we all know and love.

My ideal cell phone would access the exact same dataset that my Google Gmail account and Google Calendar access. If I update my contact or calendar information while using my desktop in a web browser - then I want that new information to be instantly available on my cell phone. I don’t want to have to sync it – I want to reference the exact information so that there is only one authoritative version.

I want my ideal cell phone to have biometric capabilities. I want to unlock it by placing my finger on it. When I place my finger on my phone the phone knows I’m holding it and I can get to all my contact information. If someone else has my phone, ideally they won’t have my finger, and they will not be able to access any of my personal contact/calendar information.

If I give my phone to someone else they should be able to put their finger on it and the phone will go out to the cloud and retrieve their information. By decoupling the information from the phone anyone’s phone will be exactly like your phone. Pick up anyone’s phone, scan your finger and your calendar and contact information will be there. Give it back to them and it’s their phone again. Imagine how handy that would be. You’ll never be without all your information.

Eventually the cloud will hold more information than just contact and calendar information. It will hold files, music, media, etc. All of it sitting there just waiting for you to access it. The only real differentiator between phones will be what methods of inputs they offer and how much viewing surface you get. The phone will be reduced to simple input and output. What it inputs and outputs will not be the concern of the cell phone company.

I wonder how long I’ll have to wait?

Now TV will suck

Dawn and I finished watching The Wire last night. It’s five seasons long, and for my money, it’s the best five seasons of TV drama that there is. I know Dawn and I have implored everyone we know to watch it…and at this point if you haven’t heeded our advice - then you are dumb. No seriously, wallow in shame and ignorance as you squander your TV entertainment. I have no pity for you.

I really respect a show that is willing to go out while it’s still going strong and not waiting until they’ve run their universe into the ground. The Wire does just that. They could have easily wringed a few more seasons out of it if they wanted to.

It’s probably a good thing that NetFlix doesn’t offer the show as part of their play on demand service. That could be dangerous to adults with other responsibilities. By forcing you to wait for the individual DVDs they force you to pace yourself. Of course now I have the predicament that my NetFlix envelopes won’t be greeted with unbridled enthusiasm. I’ve kind of grown used to the fact that each mail drop DVD was going to be pure entertainment gold. I guess I’ll have to readjust to an endless parade of crap I’ve never heard of.

Cat + Chair

It's been awhile since I've posted a Riblet photo. Tonight she was posing on a chair and I thought it looked like something that belonged in "Feline Architectural Digest" or perhaps "CEO Power Cats Exposed."

Riblet was cooperative enough to sit on the arm and let me go and fetch my camera and then fiddle around with the settings for a few minutes before I got this photo.

A Debate I Could Have Believed In

I blame that damnable NPR debate drinking game. It pointed out that Senator McCain likes to pepper his speech with “my friends.” So during last night’s debate I was sensitive to the phrase and each utterance resonated louder in my head than it should have.

This morning I was curious exactly how many times he said it. I was guessing somewhere in the 40’s….it seemed like he said it multiple times for each answer. I found a transcript of the debate and did a find and replace to see how many “my friends” there where. I was shocked to find out it he said it only 19 times. Funny how the mind can play tricks on you like that.

For my own personal amusement when I did the find and replace, I replaced “my friends” with “jackasses.” I was startled how positively I responded to the altered text.

In response to the question: “With the economy on the downturn and retired and older citizens and workers losing their incomes, what's the fastest, most positive solution to bail these people out of the economic ruin?”:

[… Significant portions of the answer elided, actually, I’m going to be eliding things like crazy from here on out …]

“Is it expensive? Yes. But we all know, jackasses, until we stabilize home values in America, we're never going to start turning around and creating jobs and fixing our economy. And we've got to give some trust and confidence back to America.

I know how do that, jackasses. And it's my proposal, it's not Senator Obama's proposal, it's not President Bush's proposal. But I know how to get America working again, restore our economy and take care of working Americans. Thank you.”

In another response while talking about reducing congressional earmarks:
…
“He voted for nearly a billion dollars in pork barrel earmark projects, including, by the way, $3 million for an overhead projector at a planetarium in Chicago, Illinois. Jackasses, do we need to spend that kind of money? “
…

In response to reforming Medicare and Social Security:
…
“Social Security is not that tough. We know what the problems are, jackasses, and we know what the fixes are. We've got to sit down together across the table. It's been done before.”
…

In response to energy policy:
...
“That's fundamental economics. We've got to drill offshore, jackasses, and we've got to do it now, and we can do it.”
...

Oh well, I’ve had my little fun at Senator McCain’s expense. For the record, I also plugged in the verbal crutch that the NPR's drinking game has listed for Senator Obama – “Now look.” But it return zero hits… So there was any fun to be had there.

Calling you out.

I started to feel a little bad that I don’t blog as much as I used to. Then I noticed that Blogger neatly displays your yearly and monthly posts totals. I’m at 117 posts for 2008. Not all of those are gems by any means. But they each probably represent some sort of small diversion for people that check my blog… and that has to be worth something.

Let’s compare that to some of my friends blogs. 7, 9, 19, 21, 26, 36. Wow, it’s kind of staggering how e-boring you guys are. Perhaps PowerPoint can illustrate the…errrr…point.

Yikes.

I'm Powerless Over the News

I heard it on the radio on my way into work. In the midst of an economic downturn Americans are tightening their budgets and are only buying necessities right now. This looks like bad news for retail stores and consumer spending this holiday season.

Thank you, Steve Inskeep. Thank you for confirming what I had already begun to suspect. The purchase of our ION Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set ™ was an unavoidable necessity. The thought was already in my head, but it sometimes helps to have it vocalized (and with such gravitas) by a respected news correspondent.

I’m glad that’s settled.

Non Sequitur

I don't feel the need nor am I in the mood to explain myself or this image. So there.

A Study in Responsibility

Christmas came early for Dawn, or so she said last night when she came home and found me assembling the ION Drum Rocker Premium Drum Set ™. I suppose it’s sort of true – the ION (I’m not typing in that obnoxious long name again) would have been her Christmas gift…If I felt like waiting until Christmas to give it to her. As soon as it was existence was announced earlier this year I knew that us purchasing it was a foregone conclusion. We would have one. The real question was when we would have one.

We recently bought Rock Band 2 and have been playing quite a bit recently. My thinking was that if I’m buying an extravagantly over priced video game peripheral we should try and milk all the enjoyment we can out of it. We might as well have it while we’re still playing the game on a nightly basis. After a month or so the shiny newness of Rock Band 2 will wear off and that will leave Dawn playing the drums at her regular frequency, like she has been for the last year. So I’m not worried that it won’t get used after the initial sheen has worn off Rock Band 2, Dawn does not appear to get bored of playing the drums….it just seemed like a shame not to enjoy the game to fullest while it was in it unbridled new game glory.

Or so I tell myself. Rationalization is a beautiful thing, no matter how tortured the logic is. If that doesn’t pass the test, then I’ve already cooked up a second reason I needed to buy the drum kit. When Dawn was in grad school she bought me Steel Battalion, at the time it was the most elaborate Xbox video game peripheral available. Last night I returned the favor by buying her the most elaborate Xbox 360 video game peripheral available (that I know of). We decided that it is the responsibility of the person in school to give extravagant video game gifts in order to help the non-student cope with the lack of attention they are receiving. Perhaps it’s not an ideal system, but there are worst things in the world than being told that you’re appreciated via the medium of video games.

Let's not try and make the debates hip

So the debates are definitely on for tonight. An odd thing I noticed is that NPR has suggested a debate drinking game. I don’t think I’ll play it. I can’t think of a beverage this would be suitable for:

Take on drink:

• Every time Barack Obama says, "Now look..."
• Every time John McCain says, "My friends..."
• When a commentator refers to someone as a "maverick"
• Every time you hear the phrase "the American dream"
• Whenever you hear the words "hope" or "ownership society" or "fellow Americans"

Take two drinks:

• When one of the candidates uses the word "change" or "reformer"
• Every time either candidate says the word "economy"
• Every time either candidate says "middle class"

Egads! This isn’t far removed from just saying take a drink whenever you see someone wearing a suit.

The stinger is they end the bit with “Above all, drink responsibly.” I don’t think it would be responsible of me to even try and attempt this with water.

Events with wheelchairs and swords....you betcha.

Something that’s been bouncing around in my head since we got back from the UK… Did anyone catch the Paralympics? I bet the answer is “no”. No one that I’ve asked since I’ve got back has said yes. Most people didn’t even know what I was talking about.

The 2008 Paralympic games took place in Beijing from September 6th through the 17th. The BBC dedicated an hour of prime time coverage to the games each night, giving the athletes the full Olympic-style treatment. It was awesome. I think that’s bears repeating, the Paralympic games are awesome.

I think if you enjoy watching the Olympics (and admittedly I’m only meh on them), then you need to watch the Paralympics. The Paralympics delivers in a big way that the Olympics is unable to compete with. Do you watch the Olympics for palpable atmosphere of competition? The Paralympics has got you covered – the athletes are using the exact same pools and venues as the Olympians and have been training just as long and hard as the Olympians. They’re there to win.

Do you watch the Olympics to bask in the glory of what the human form is capable of? If you think watching a “normal” athlete do something faster or more efficient than you is awesome, then you’ll be absolutely gob-smacked by what a trained athlete missing bits can do.

Do you watch the Olympics for the display of sportsmanship? The heart shown at the Paralympics will crush you. No seriously, your throat will start to constrict and you’ll be teary eyed. There are no aloof professional participants to jack things up, the participants aren’t going to get multimillion dollar sponsorships, and they probably won’t be able to create a career out of winning big. Take away all the fame (compared to the Olympics) and you’re just left with people trying to play really hard for the sake of sports (and to prove what is possible).

God forbid you watch the Olympics for the predictable stories of a poor underdog who has overcome so many obstacles to compete. If you do, don’t watch the Paralympics – I don’t think you’ll be able to handle it. Needless to say, some of those athletes know what it means to overcome a few inconvenient obstacles.

I think it’s a shame that the US supported our Paralympians in such a poor and asymmetrical manner compared to our Olympians. The US Paralympic team came in third (if you care about medal counts). It’s sad that people weren’t tuned in cheering the wheelchair rugby (affectingly known as “murderball”) to their gold metal.

Lastly, as if any of the above listed reasons are not enough, by broadcasting the Paralympians during prime time, in their moment of glory, the BBC also manages to share people with disabilities with the general public and dispel some of the differentness and/or awkwardness of their condition. At first some viewers might find the sight of incomplete appendages a tad shocking, but by the end of the event I bet they’re rooting for a favorite athlete - having transcended what makes them different and connected what makes us cheer for athletes in the first place.

[Note: On the off chance the Paralympic games get confused with the Special Olympics. The Paralympics are for athletes with physical, mental, and sensorial disabilities. This includes athletes with mobility disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy. The Special Olympics are restricted to people with intellectual disabilities.]

Dawn, your cellphone is glowing blue!

Since we’ve gotten home I haven’t really seen the neighbors adjacent to us on one side. I notice items and trinkets occasionally shift around their property from time to time. I had assumed that we were simply keeping different schedules and kept missing one another.

On our way back from a walk last night I noticed something alarming about their yard. At first glance I thought the tree was not chocked full of antlers. A second inspection proved me wrong. I fear that our neighbor’s house may have been overrun by goblins!

Blogging from Scotland

Dawn and I will attempt to post updates during our trip. Those will be sequestered on their own little blog.

Check it out and see if we've been able to find internet access on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

Please stop saying nonsense

I actually tried to sit down and watch a little bit of the DNC convention last night. OK, that’s not quite true. There wasn’t an active attempt on my part to watch it. More accurately, by the time I had a chance to sit down and watch TV last night the DNC convention just so happened to be on the channel that the TV was tuned to. So I decided to stop a minute and see what it was about.

My take away: lunacy, pure and absolute lunacy. I don’t think I’ll watch any more of it and I find this a little bit troubling. I can’t stand to watch the actual event, so I’ll most likely rely on a 3rd party to watch and report on it for me. Who knows what sort of accidental or intentional bias I’ll pick up from the 3rd party? If I’m at the least bit interested shouldn’t I be willing to watch the actual event and judge for myself? Hell no. I don’t think possible to be moderate and enjoy watching a convention, DNC or otherwise.

The problem with any convention is it’s a room full of the most devout and fanatical members of a party. By definition it pretty much represents an extreme political viewpoint. Anything that can make a crowd like that hoot and holler will likely be insane partisan blather.

The part that kills me is they act like there is this big lever. If you pull it one direction it helps the constituents. If you push it the other it hurts the constituents. Naturally their party only wants to selflessly pull the lever to help the constituents, and the other party selfishly wants to push it for their own gain at the expense of the constituents. Really, who (besides Dawn) would even think about founding a party on the “hurt constituents” model?

Am I too jaded and skeptical or does what pass for public discourse really just boil down to unreasonably deifying one party so they can get into power while demonizing the other. The reality is neither party is going to make too many changes to upset the status quo. Either candidate will accomplish both good and bad resulting from combination of happenstance and deliberate governance (I suspect that happenstance plays a larger role than governance).

I find listening to all the campaign promises during an election season to be profoundly depressing. Does anyone really believe any of them will come to pass? If history teaches us anything - very few administrations accomplish what they promise…partly because it’s impossible to deliver all that they promised and partly because they have to work with a bunch of people who need to see them fail in order to get their own turn in power. Yet there are those who keep the hope alive that their candidate will pull the big help constituents lever. How do the faithful do it election after election? Are they like goldfish with short memories, or is hope just a better option than resignation?

The Modern Gatherer

I wrote about how I read about the new Domino pizza tracker a while ago (I dare you to construct a more clumsy sentence!) Well since then I’ve had two opportunities to try the system out. Here are my observations.

Observation 1: The idea of being able to order and track a pizza with absolutely zero human interaction is a good one. If for no other reason than I had stopped eating Domino pizza a couple of years ago… and now I’ve eaten it twice… perhaps I’ll even order it some more. I never had anything against their pizza, in fact I feel very ambivalent about it. Dawn doesn’t care for it too much and evidently the hassle of having to order it was enough to discourage us from consuming it. Things have changed now that I don’t have to talk to anyone. That little extra bit of convenience has put Dominos back on our “what do you want to eat tonight?” rotation. (Sadly it replaced the Thai food being their delivery guy had a heart attack and now refuses to deliver food. I miss Thai delivery dearly.) The fact that you can now pay for a pizza with a credit card like any other online transaction doesn’t hurt either. Much like Domino drivers, I also hardly carry any cash.

Observation 2: Whenever something can be customized (like a pizza) it is always better to allow people to play around with their order on a computer instead of having to place it with a human. I learned this the first time I had a hot dog from Dawn’s hometown favorite convenience store. Hot dog. Convenience store…I know it doesn’t sound promising. But the magical store had touch screen kiosks that let you pick all the toppings and options for their hotdogs which resulted in you creating some truly abominable hotdogs. They were fantastic…but not something I would have spent time trying to communicate to another human. The end result was a product I was happier with, which is kind of the point of customization in the first place. Online pizza ordering allows me to order a feast pizza and remove three items and then add four other items without feeling like a schmuck for making the order complicated.

Observation 3: To quote comedian Lewis Black: “It takes away hope.” I learned this the hard way the first time we used pizza tracking. Dawn was hungry before I ordered the pizza. Without a tracker I would have placed the order and we would have waited. I could have consoled the growling Dawn with platitudes such as “I’m sure it will be here any minute.” Not with a pizza tracker I can’t. Instead Dawn is clawing at the walls, howling with hunger, and I’m saying “it’s not even in the oven yet” or “it’s in the box but it’s just sitting there.” Eventually we see that Devon has our pizza and is on his way but Dawn is threatening to slash his tip with every moment’s delay. Sometime knowing exactly where your dinner is a dangerous thing.

Overall conclusion for online pizza ordering and tracking: Introvert Recommended.

Now if they could only come up with some sort of pizza delivery robot…

We’re stuck with NBC

In the run up to the Olympics I kept hearing how horrible it was that the Chinese government censored internet usage and people in China couldn’t just go out on the internet and get their news from whatever source they wanted. I heard more than one story about how the Chinese government was making exceptions for foreign reporters sent to cover the Olympics. Much ado was made out how awful censorship is.

Thus far Dawn and I have not been particularly thrilled with NBC Olympic coverage. Well that’s not entirely true… The coverage of the actual events, the few that I bothered to watch, seemed to be fine. I could moan and groan that all swimming events looks the same and wouldn’t it be nice to swap one or two of those out for some fencing or judo…but what would be the point. The summer Olympics are about running, swimming, volleyball and gymnastics and it doesn’t matter what I like. Fair enough. However, the color commentary offered by NBC has been pretty awful at times. (You can reference Dawn’s blog for examples.) I thought to myself that the Olympics might be more pleasant if we could get rid of the asinine NBC anchors and replace them with someone else, anyone else. So I tried to pull up BBC Olympic coverage over the internet. I quickly learned two things.

Thing 1:
You can’t pull up BBC Olympic coverage over the internet unless you live in the UK. My short and half-assed research attempt to figure out why seems to indicate that news outlets had to promise to just provide content to people in their region so as to not step on the toes of other regions who have bought the rights to broadcast the Olympics. Evidently government censorship of news is very very bad thing, but corporate censorship by the news is a good and necessary thing. Essentially we are a captive audience for our corporate news overlords and must accept whatever coverage they deem appropriate. We shall not venture to find other (less dumb) sourced of coverage.

Thing 2:
BBC Olympic coverage looks way cooler than ours. They have an animated monkey. An animated monkey. We have nary an animated simian. The one video you can watch (from outside the UK) on the BBC sports site is the commercial for BBC Olympic coverage which is in fact a two minutes animated cartoon set to music, appropriately, by the Gorillaz. How cool is that.

No time to sleep… I can figure this out!

Every once in a while a game will come along and grab your brain in that special way. Call it inspiration, fascination, infatuation, autism, or what-have-you but it’s just not easy to shake. This weekend an unsuspecting Xbox Arcade download called Braid grabbed my brain…and wouldn’t let go.

At first glance Braid looks a like platform game. You have a guy, he can jump, and there are side-scrolling jump puzzles. Holding on to that Mario paradigm won’t get you very far in Braid. In addition to a jump button you have second button that you can press to manipulate time. The effect subtly changes from world to world, but essentially you can reverse time at will…but not all things are affected by your time manipulation…but most things are. So it’s not just a matter of where you jump but when you jump…but you can control the when to jump….now and sometimes in the past…. You just kind of have to play it. Sufficed to say that Braid is more of a puzzle game than a platform game, it’s a puzzle game in platform’s clothing if you will.

Much to my surprise, my brain really digs it. How do I know…because I can’t stop thinking about it! Oh trust me, I’ve tried, but when the distractions of the day melt away and I lie there trying to fall asleep my brain flips back to working on time manipulation puzzles. It thinks, perhaps I could fold time in this way to let the past me open that door for the present me. If I slow down time there and reverse time over there then maybe I can get the key over there. Arghgh…..Please stop thinking about time. So my brain does… kind of… instead of thinking about the game it presents me with a list of telltale signs that a person can manipulate time.

According to half-a-sleep Bill brain the number one sign of a time manipulator is someone who never has regrets. At first we thought it was someone who was always right…but then we considered what if they purposely did something that looked wrong to people in the present, but would be correct in the long term, that would eventually be right…. Having no regrets for a “wrong” decision would be a surer indicator. Isn’t having no regrets also an indicator of a psychopath? Kind of makes you wonder.

Speaking of psychopaths, the neighbor’s Big Wheels are continuing to creep me out…plus they are multiplying. A third one appeared.

Toddler Fueled Murdercycles

I’ve perhaps mentioned the multitude of brightly colored plastic toys that have moved in next door. Before I thought them to be just aesthetically displeasing, now I fear they may be tainted with evil. For the last week or so whenever I leave or return to my house I am greeted with the following sight:

Whenever I see it some subtle network of neurons fires in my brain and registers evil! flee! I think it’s because it reminds me of the scene from The Shining where the little boy is riding the big wheel through the hotel and runs into the twin girls who entreat him to “come play with us.” I realize in the movie there are two girls and only one hot wheel….but surely two hot wheels must indicate four (murdered) little girls! Whatever the case I maintain that the little plastic demonsleds have a creep out factor associated with them.

Avoid (talking to) the Noid

I think Steven Levitt and I have a very similar philosophy when it comes to dealing with sales people. Please don’t make us. Dawn will attest that I rather sit there and stare at an item for a good thirty minutes in an effort to glean what information I desire from some unspecified cosmic source before I dare interact with the item, or worse, a sales person.

On the Freakonomics blog Steven discusses how even ordering food over the phone is a distasteful act of human interaction best pawned off on other people. I couldn’t agree more. I’ve often been stuck in an agonizing the three-way dilemma where I have to decide which factor has the greatest influence: my desire to avoid to ordering food on the phone, my hunger, and my willingness to piss off other people in the room who expect me to take some sort of action. (Hint: I always see if I can wait them out).

Steven also reports that Dominos lets you order your pizza on the web and then you get to track it every step of the way to your door. It even tells you if your pizza is in their pizza oven and who put it there!?!? How cool is that! I love tracking things on the internet. I have a DHL package I’ve been tracking all day. Its current status is "Shipment delivered" and I bet that won’t even stop me from tacking it some more. Think how interesting it would be if the status actually changed…

So perhaps Dominos has turned one of my least favorite things to do into one of my most favorite things to do. I’ll be interested to try this new service out. I still can’t help and wonder if they really ought to be wasting their time trying to impress me. I would have guessed that neurotic misanthropic introvert would have been a niche market. Not that I’m complaining.

Riblet Expands Her Online Presence

Dawn has put together a blog for Riblet that explains what the Riblet Twitter project is. I think she did a very good job blogging as Riblet and I thought it was pretty funny (but I’m probably biased).

It’s not something that I see us updating very often. So you know, don’t get your hopes up.

The part that really made me giggle is the Amazon wish list Dawn made for Riblet. Pay special attention to Riblet’s justification for each item on her list. Just to be clear, no we are not hoping to get free stuff out of this. Dawn purposely left off any information that would allow an anonymous person from gifting Riblet. Dawn is just using Amazon as a medium for more Riblet based humor.

So anyway, I can’t take any credit for any of the funny, but I wanted to give Dawn props for writing some stuff that made my day.

A Diligent Agent of Order.

One of the things that I really love about my EEE laptop is its power adapter. It’s a well thought out power adapter. The power outlet prongs fold up when it’s not in use, its cord has a long generous length, and there is this Velcro cable tie held captive to the cord to keep the long generous cord from becoming a tangled mess when you wrap it up for storage.

Recently I’ve been putting together a kit bag for my new digital camera - in said kit bag there will need to be a few cables. Predictably the cables came with just a twisty wrapped around them. The twisties length is such that they can only encompass a cable that has been wrapped by a highly specialized wrapping machine at the factory. They are not long enough to secure a cable wrapped by the hands of man. I decided it would be much more convenient if I could purchase Velcro cable ties like the one on my EEE to organize the cables in my camera bag.

My early Google results for Velcro cable ties yielded surprising results: www.CableTiesPlus.com, www.cableorganizer.com, www.buycableties.com, and my favorite – www.FASTENation.com. How was I previously so ignorant of this highly specialized community of websites offering “thousands of wire management products?” Each of the websites had multiple Velcro cable tie candidates available in a plethora of lengths, colors, and styles.

I quickly realized that if I ordered cable ties from any of these websites I would either end up paying more for shipping than for my tiny package of cable ties or have to order a batch of thousands of cable ties (with free shipping!) I’ll admit it. I briefly entertained the idea of ordering thousands of cable ties. I may have fantasized about being the Johnny Appleseed equivalent of cable organization. In the end I kept searching for a more convenient option.

Eventually I stumbled across the fact that Target carries Velcro cable ties, but you can’t order them from their website and be screwed by their shipping, they are only available in their stores. Kismet. Yesterday I stopped by Target on the way home and picked up the coveted organizational tool. I’ll confess that I am actually embarrassed by how giddy I was. Evidently the thought of cable organization touches me in a deep and profound way. Now the cables in my camera bag are conveniently secured. Now my cell phone charger cable, my Bluetooth headset charging cable, and various USB adapter cables around the house are organized in a satisfactory manner. It’s a brave new day.

If you looking for a cheap thrill, may I suggest the humble Velcro cable tie?

I bet I read this tomorrow and think it's crap.

I’m in the state of mind that can only be achieved by being absolutely alone for the last 50+ hours and reading ISO standards for the last 8. Not that I’m complaining, I’ve enjoyed my anti-social weekend. It’s just that I seem to be in strange mental territory.

Yesterday I tried to focus on my thesis as I was mowing the lawn. It worked for about half the lawn. I actually quite enjoyed thinking about imaginary little universes and winking them in and out of existence. Little universes of infinite but indiscernible items are the best mental handle I have on set theory. My research has brought me back to my old friend - set theory. In particular I’m trying to imagine how logical universes working on the “open universe assumption” would map onto universes working with a “closed universe assumption.” Thrilling, I know. It all ties into databases I promise you, but I won’t thrill you with the details.

Unprompted, my thoughts strayed to the subject of social media for the second half of my lawn mowing session. Or more to the point, what does it actually mean to be social? (Perhaps my hermit weekend prompted the subject change.) I observed that a large portion of social media is self promotion and begging for help. I was wondering if self promotion and requesting help is the same thing as being social. I expect there is a sociologist somewhere that has managed to list out and characterize all the aspects of social interaction. I wonder how that list would line up with what we call social media. Sounds like an interesting research topic (for someone else – I got plenty of my own.)

The lesser aspect of social media seems to be sharing interesting tid-bits – that seems more social to me. It’s kind of the long distance version of sitting down with a cup of coffee and chatting. I don’t think anyone calls someone up and asked them to come over so they can tell them about themselves and then get help finding something. Or maybe they do. What do I know – I was never any good at being social.

I miss our old view.

Surveying the primary color nightmare that is plastic children’s toys (both our neighbors have small kids). I can only imagine the shame that parents must feel for engineering such an optical cacophony. It’s no wonder so many kids go “Goth” when they get old enough to choose their own stuff. Their retinas must be blown out from all the bright colors as kids. They simply need the visual rest that all black provides.

Here’s a thought. If parents only gave their kids black toys, would kids grow up and go “Clown?”

Key lime Confessions

Dawn made mini versions of her key lime cake last weekend. It’s a recipe that she perfected over the last few years. Every part of the cake is handmade from scratch and tailored to our exacting flavor profile specification. It’s the only way she can get the correct amount of tart, tart, lime into a cake. The final product is a decadently rich cake which is both sweet and very tart. It’s what all desserts should aspire to be (citrusy and chocolate free!)

To celebrate the ultimate achievement of the baking arts we knew we had to do something special, something worthy of the cake that takes Dawn all day to make. Naturally, we opted for Bourbon Fights. The concept of Bourbon Fights is simple. Two bourbons enter, no bourbons leave. A tough break for the bourbons to be sure, but it works out well for Dawn and me. The bourbons fight for fame and our admiration. Our gastronomic gladiators were two releases of George T. Stagg. It’s a limited production bourbon released by Buffalo Trace Distillery - only in the fall. We had the 2007 and 2006 releases fight each other for our amusement while we ate our cake. (Side note: Buffalo Trace jokingly refers to their George T. Stagg releases as “Hazmat” because the proofs are so high they are supposedly not allowed aboard commercial flights.)


We were actually kind of surprised by our little vertical tasting. The two releases were nothing alike. It was hard to choose a victor. The 2006 release had strong flavors of caramel and a distinctive sweet complexity. The 2007 release had more charcoal characteristics (in a good way) and its own kind of smoky complexity. The fight might have been a tie. It would all come down to do your prefer a sweet or smoky bourbon. Being the cake was so sweet I thought the smoky bourbon paired better and awarded the 2007 release the title.

Undoubtedly the 2006 release is going to want another shot at the title. It’s not going to settle for second best just because we happen to be eating cake during its last fight. Now, we live in a tinderbox of a house and any moment a grudge match bourbon fight could erupt. Oh noes.

Things are getting fierce

This just came to my attention (and makes me wonder what my employees are actually doing at work).


Casting call in Huntsville. I expect you'll want to know the rules:

You must be female, between the ages of 18 and 27, at least 5'7" in height, and a United States citizen. There are no weight requirements and no prior modeling experience is preferred.

The website doesn't mention any (in)sanity requirements...but if you expect to get a callback you probably ought to bring your full on self-deluded crazies. Also, being more tall and less fat never seems to hurt.

Edison was a hack.

Riblet Twitter has become an unexpected competitor for my thesis. I thought it would be something that I just kind of setup and let go, but I find myself wanting to spend time improving it, time that I should be dedicating to research. Last night I ended up dividing my efforts between the two.

I made some progress on rewriting the program that drives Riblet Twitter. The new one will be written in VB.net. VB isn’t my first choice for a development language, but the availability of ActiveHome SDK examples made it the most efficient choice if I didn’t want to spend time reinventing the wheel. I’ve nearly re-written the entire initial JavaScript application in VB now. Now I just need to make improvements...

Today is Nikola Tesla’s birthday. Give it up to the man who according to some “invented the twentieth century” and is “the patron saint of modern electricity.” History is a strange thing. The man should be a household name. During his day his fame rivaled that of any inventor or scientist, but today he goes largely forgotten.

A Sad Commentary on the Wireless Router.

While I was working on Riblet’s Twitter feed this weekend I ran across true genius. Those of you with wireless routers at home will instantly recognize the greatness of this idea.

I was perusing the SDK forum at the X10 site and reading about other home automation projects people were working on. One of them used the same computer interface that I’m using and an appliance control module.

For background, let me explain how the appliance control module works. You plug the appliance control module into a wall outlet and then you plug an appliance into the appliance control module. The computer interface can then turn the appliance on and off by switching power on and off on the appliance control module (assuming that the appliance will power up automatically when it gets power).

What the genius application did was write a program that tries to hit three major websites every minute or so (I think it was Google, MSN, and something else). If the program is unable to reach all three major sites it concludes that the router has lost internet connectivity. It then uses the home automation modules to command that the power be turned off to the wireless router, waits a few seconds, and turns the power back, thusly power cycling the wireless router. Isn’t that cool. The house’s computers can automatically reboot the router whenever it craps out. No more having to swear under your breath, get up and walk through the house to wherever you have your router hidden, then manually unplug it, glower, and plug it back in. Now you can simply swear under breath and wait a moment or two for it to fix itself.

Isn’t it amazing that we live in an age where modern technology can help mitigate some of the constant irritations and ailments thrust upon by modern technology?

My Cat Chirps..no wait..Tweats.

So Riblet has her own Twitter feed. David noticed I reserved the account for her back in May. Yesterday he started to notice activity on it. So I guess I’ll announce that Riblet Twitter is now in beta. Don’t expect it to be all that great starting out. It’s an automated system, so you’re likely to see the same thing posted over and over again. Plus I’m not even promising that it will be up all the often, but it’s up today and she managed to Twitter all by herself.

So how does thumbless Riblet manage to Twitter? Through the magic of home automation.

I had joked that people only post inane garbage on Twitter (“I’m eating a sandwich”) and my cat could contribute just as meaningful messages about her daily minutia….then I decided to try and follow through with my claim. I purchased some home automation equipment from X10.com. (I’d post a link to the site, but you don’t want to go there. It’s the most annoying website ever).

Here’s Riblet’s current Twitter setup: An EagleEye wireless motion sensor (MS14A), an ActiveHome Pro computer interface module (CM15A), a computer, and a food bowl. The computer interface module receives a signal from the wireless motion sensor when she eats at her food bowl. The computer interface module then notifies the computer via a USB cable. The software that came along with ActiveHome Pro didn’t really allow for any sort of Twitter functionality so I had to download the ActiveHome Pro SDK (Software Development Kit) and build my own. Currently that involves a JavaScript application that monitors the ActiveHome service and watches for motion sensor events. When it gets an event it selects a random phrase (all currently food based) and triggers a command line utility called Curl that interfaces with the Twitter API. The bottom line is it sends a Tweat to Twitter.

The current setup is imperfect. Since it is a JavaScript application it runs in a web browser. That means I have to keep that browser window open all the time if I want it to work. The permissions are a bit wonky because web browsers usually don’t want to let JavaScript run executable files on the hard disk. I managed to finesse my way around all that to get the system working, but for long term use I’ll probably have to rewrite the entire thing in C# or something that will make a nice background application.

If I decide to continue the project there are a couple of things I could do to make it better. I could add more motion sensors to capture different Riblet activities. I could create more random phrases for her to post, but I think the real key is concentrating on ways to generate interesting phrases that I can’t always predict. Then I’ll actually enjoy reading her feed myself. An obvious modification would be to add time context in addition to location context to the phrases, so if it’s morning she’ll posts stuff about eating breakfast, then lunch later in the day. I also think it would be really cool if I could figure out how to use another dynamic source to help form her phrases. For instance maybe I could hook into a weather feed and start building phrases about how the weather is making her sleepy or hungry (“I always enjoy a late afternoon snack on a rainy day”).

I suppose there are all sorts of things I could do. Maybe add in a webcam to capture her. Does Riblet need her own flicker account? Maybe, who knows? Of course, I might just get bored and move onto a new project, but at least I can claim success in figuring out automatic Twitter posting on this one.

Coffee Anyone?

One last bit of Lafayette news from our recent mission to Indiana. Do you know anyone who wants to own a coffee shop? I only ask because one of the local Lafayette coffee shops that Dawn and I used to frequent appears to be looking for a new owner. We discovered this, much to our dismay, on Saturday afternoon when we needed a bit of a pick-me-up and walked over to where it used to be only to find the following notice on the door.

$20k doesn’t seem like a lot for a coffee shop. The offer claims that all assets and equipment are included. Does anyone know how much the equipment for a coffee shop normally runs? The old location seemed pretty good, after all it was short walking distance from the Tippecanoe Courthouse (man Indiana has some gorgeous court houses).

Surely someone is interested in a coffee shop starter pack. If you do buy it check and see if you got any of the “Bad Coffee Sucks” coffee mugs in your assets. I’d like to have another one of those.

Mission Photos

I recently got a new cell phone. My old one was, well old, and I wanted to upgrade to something a bit more modern. It had been so long since I last bought a new cell phone that Verizon Wireless had been sending me offers near constantly trying to entice me into signing another contract with them by offering phone discounts. I ended up going with an enV2 which only cost me $5 dollars all said and done. The really surprising thing is my experience dealing with Verizon Wireless this time out wasn’t the abusive painful ordeal I’ve come to expect from their customer service. It was in fact almost pleasant. I wonder if they have been making a concerted effort to improve their customer service or if I just so happen to win the Verizon Wireless customer service lottery. Time will tell.

Anywho, one of the features of my new phone is an improved built in camera. While we were on our mission to Indiana I decided to try it out. This first shot was taken sometime after 9:00 pm on our drive up. Dawn was driving and complaining about Indiana being in the Eastern Time Zone. When we used to live there they didn’t observe daylight savings time and were kind of in between time zones, now they are firmly planted in EST. As a result of being on the same time as NYC, but being in the Midwest, they have sun until 9:30 or so in the summer now. I believe her complaint about sunlight after 9:00 pm (which is by Dawn standards is very near bed time) was “this is some Article Circle bullcrap right here.” But she didn’t exactly say bullcrap.

This next shot if from our lunch the following day at the Lafayette Brewing Company. It’s a plate of scotched eggs. I’m pretty sure if Dawn got to rule the world it would be standard issue breakfast food…with perhaps a fried egg served over it. (My hunch is many of you are disgusted by the suggestion of serving fried eggs over hard-boiled eggs sheathed in sausage and deep fried…but some of you are probably already salivating.)

Finally, this last shot is of a beer bottle I spotted while perusing a West Lafayette bottle shop. Alabama restricts the sale of beers over a certain number of fluid ounces. I think the idea is to protect the population from 40 ounce bottles of malt liquor, but we are also deprived of many artisanal beers as a side effect. Here is a 3 quart bottle of Chimay, which is something we’d never see in Alabama. By Alabama logic, if we were to allow sale of such an item, under age high school kids who crave Belgian beers would run out and buy the $77 bottle of beer just to get stinking drunk.

Our Deep Fried Joy

Dawn and I conducted a mission to Indiana last weekend. The logistics of the mission were such that we spent some time in our old stomping grounds of Lafayette. It was pretty trippy going back to Lafayette. It wasn’t all that long ago that we lived there and my old routines are still fresh enough to feel like I could fall back into them.

One of the things that I miss about Lafayette is its pubs. Lafayette knows a thing or two about pubs. There were easily four good pubs that were an easy walking distance from our hotel. We probably could have walked to an additional four or five pubs if we had the mind to. These are authentic locally owned joints too. I’m not talking about some cooperate chain that pretend to be a local neighborhood pub.

While there we were able to visit the Lafayette Brewing Company and get fish and chips. I’ve done a decent amount of traveling in my life and tried fish and chips in a number of places. For my money Lafayette Brewing Company has the best fish and chips I’ve come across yet (hang your head in shame Ireland). I routinely crave their fish and chips so this weekend it was such a treat to actually indulge the craving.

Apart from fish and chips the Lafayette Brewing Company just does pub food (aka fried food) right. We also had scotched eggs (hardboiled eggs encased in sausage and deep fried) and jalapeño potato munchers while there. Simply divine.

Did I mention that it is a brewing company? The beer was very good. I miss living in a state that has microbreweries.

Try as we did, we didn’t even get a chance to sample to new pubs on the other side of the river. There is a scotch bar and an Irish bar that have opened up in West Lafayette since we lived there. We got good reviews but ran out of time before we were able to go and judge for ourselves. Perhaps we’ll make them priorities next time should we be assigned another mission to Lafayette.

Dirty Fun with Web Policies

Normally reading through web site policy updates is pretty dry stuff. It’s not something I particularly enjoy doing. So I was delighted when I read the following policy statement this morning:

The dominant theme of any Web site, whether an Official or Unofficial Web Site, must not appeal to prurient interest to the average person applying contemporary community standards.

The first thing I had to do was look up a definition for prurient. According to dictionary.com it means:

1. having, inclined to have, or characterized by lascivious or lustful thoughts, desires, etc.
2. causing lasciviousness or lust.
3. having a restless desire or longing.

I love how much latitude this policy statement leaves. It would appear that we could have some prurient content on our site as long as it wasn’t the dominant theme. Perhaps we could get away with a sub-dominant theme? (I don’t even know what means but I bet it violates the spirit of the policy).

Alternatively it would appear that we could have some really prurient content on the site as long as it wouldn’t appeal to the average person. So what, like as long as it only appeals to really deviant individuals, its ok? That’s a pretty frightening policy too.

Victory is Mine!

With the melodious notes of Chariots of Fire almost tangible in the air, I finished my bookcase project last night. Thus concludes an often interrupted thirteen month long project.

For the record, I would not recommend a monstrously complex shelving project to “learn woodworking” on.

Also, to give you a frame of reference, the “small” black bookcase on the right-hand side of the photo is six feet tall. My creation is a behemoth that actually looms in the room like an shoddily constructed obelisk of science fiction knowledge.

This just in!

I don’t know why or how it got there, but I’d swear that there is a picture of Riblet on icanhascheezburger.com this morning.

The cat in question has the same coloration and markings as Riblet and the same visible seething hatred and loathing for the world at large. The fact that I didn’t post this image is most troubling.

I now have to contemplate the possibilities of dobbel-Riblets and/or Ribblet clone armies. Oh my.

[Original link – identical to image posted below]

Drinking proper and correct.

I’m thinking back on other happenings whilst confined to my Cone of Silence and my thoughts return to the weekend before last. You remember, the weekend where the thermometer said it was only 95 degrees outside but it felt like the surface of the sun. I believe that is the weekend some you decided it would be fun to build a shed. Oh the good times. I on the other hand was watching my grill transform pork butt into ham (as reported yesterday).

Being it was so hot outside Dawn and I decided there was only one sane and rational thing to do - make margaritas. Being it was so miserable outside no ordinary margaritas would do – so we were forced to advance the state of margaritas mixology forward. Basically we decided the excess heat demanded some sort of berry addition to the margarita. However, every berry inspired margarita either of us has ever tasted has been a froufrou sugary disaster of a drink – nothing more than Kool-Aid spiked for adults. We wanted a fruited margarita that would remain an honest tart drink despite the presence of fruit.

The important intuitive leap we made was that the fruit should supply all the sweetness in the margarita. This coupled with our predilection for simple drinks led us to the following margarita formula:

• 2 ounces tequila
• 1 ounce lime juice
• 7-9 raspberries
• 7-9 large ice cubes
• pinch course sea salt

Place raspberries into a martini shaker and mash them up (I use the large muddle stick I bought to make Gordon cups – another awesome summer drink). After raspberries are pulped add the tequila and lime juice and ice to the shaker. Shake vigorously until you feel that the ice has started to break into smaller chunks. Pour into a glass and a pinch of sea salt to the top. There you go - a margarita on the rocks, proper. It’s really just four ingredients and there is no fussing around with syrups or salting the rim of glasses. The drink will turn out bright red without being sugary sweet. If you like a saltier margarita you can use a bigger pinch of salt.

Really, this ought to be enough to satisfy you all your margaritas needs….but I sense some of you desire more. Some of you are no doubt elitist and want push the margarita further so they can have a truly original (but honest) drink. Ok, I got you covered. You want to kick it upscale this is what you do – add herbs. No kidding.

Dawn and I tried this variation and where very pleased. Follow the above recipe but add in some thyme leaves when you place the raspberries into the shaker to muddle. Then garnish with a thyme spring skewered through a raspberry. The flavors of the drink are simple enough that the herbal notes ring true. It’s pretty awesome. (Full discloser: the thyme idea was lifted from a less than awesome gin drink I saw in some magazine).

I also have high hopes for a variation where the thyme leaves are replaced with basil leaves. I think a raspberry basil margarita will be pretty great…but I haven’t tried it yet. Also I’m interested in replacing the raspberries with blackberries just to see the color difference in the final drink – I’m guessing it will turn out dark blue or blackish. So much experimentation to do, good thing summer is just starting.

Cough, cough, sneeze, sneeze, scream, scream. Repeat.

Whoever decided today was take your sick and/or feral child to lunch day needs to have internal organs punctured and be dropped in a pit of the screaming little disease vectors they let loose on my lunch.

That is all.

Power to the Pibil

I spent the last week sequestered in my Cone of Silence. The cone was prepared in the traditional manner and my stay was pleasant.

One of the things I yearned to share last week, but was not able to (due to the aforementioned Cone of Silence), was exciting developments in pork pibil. Or more specifically, cochinita pibil, which is a close cousin to good old pork pibil. I saw this recipe in the May issue of Bon Appétit and singled it out for experimentation.

I bought two pork butts for a total of 10 pounds of porcine goodness - following the longstanding 5lb of meat per person rule. I quickly ran into problems however when I tried to buy the ingredients for the marinade, it calls for ¼ cup of anchiote paste. I’ve never seen nor heard of anchiote paste. I’m only vaguely aware that anchiote is some sort of pepper. Dawn and I tried multiple food sources and kept coming up empty on anchiote paste….or anchiotes period. In the end I made some wild substitutions for the paste. I used one Latino spice packet mix of which anchiote was the very last ingredient, one chipotle bouillon cube (because I read that anchiote paste comes as a compressed powder and is then hydrated, I figured this is similar), and four smoked mystery peppers (per pork butt).

Kroger had these giant smoked peppers in their produce section with no identification or pricing information anywhere to be found. I suspect that they were chipotles. I tried to ask one of the produce people about them but she looked startled at the notion of providing information. She basically said that while she was working in the produce section, that was no guarantee or indication that she knew anything about produce. Fair enough. Then for good measure she added “I don’t even cook.” I appreciated that she was hedging her bets and letting me know that even a general question about food would be unwelcomed and unanswered.

The checkout line the employee was equally perplexed by the peppers and none of his produce documentation hinted at anything that might reveal its identity. Eventually he looked me square in the eye and asked “would you say fifteen cents would be a fair price for this item.” I curtly nodded and our conspiracy to buy unnamable goods was complete.

Whatever the mystery peppers may have been or however close my anchiote paste approximation may have resulted- the final product rocked. I put the well marinated pork butts on the Black Evil Egg at 220 degrees and let them cruise for about eight hours. Towards the end I started to raise the grill’s temperature because I wanted to eat that day and a pork butt can hang out on a 220 fire for close to twenty hours if you let it. The resulting pork wasn’t quiet shareable, but was super tender and made for some amazing soft tacos, and sandwiches, and salad topping, and soup addition. Basically we happily ate pork all last week (it’s good Cone of Silence food). So revered was our pork pibil that it was bestowed the honoree title of “Ham,” which as you well know, is only bestowed upon the most splendid of porcine products (well that or “Bacon”).

Late night anger

Driving home last night. The time is about 9:15. I'm exhausted and sweaty - just finished working out. The brain has flipped on autopilot and I'm basically a drone in the car. In the distance a water buffalo realizes it rather be a beautiful butterfly and emits a mournful mew. Suddenly I hear a “thump thump thump.” Autopilot is disengaged and problem solving mode is initiated. What is that? Do I have a flat tire? An experimental swerve of the wheel and the sound goes away. Perhaps I was too close to the shoulder... Autopilot mode engaged. In the distance the water buffalo realizes that butterflies get to spend all day sitting on flowers and drinking nectar instead of wallowing in mud and crap…it emits and even more soulful mew of mourning. Suddenly the “thump thump thump” returns… Autopilot mode disengaged and problem solving mode initiated. Was I by the shoulder again? Do I have a flat? Why is there a water buffalo in the car? Dammit! I know what's going on... I hate Echoes.

Who in their right mind plays a "song" that's all sad water bufflos and flat tire sounds?

Tweets from Mars

I’ve been meaning to write something about the current NASA Mars Phoenix mission – it’s awesome. In particular I think it is genius how NASA chose to use Twitter to publicize the mission. I’m not a big fan of Twitter by any means, mostly I find it annoying, but in this case I think it’s the right tool for job.

By and large NASA research missions get the shaft when it comes to coverage. Basically people only remember when things break, fail, or can’t convert between English and Metric units. Success is largely ignored and no one gets excited when things go right. NASA is helping counteract that with Twitter updates from the Mars Phoenix explorer. If that’s all they were doing it would be pretty cool. But the real stroke of genius is they are sending out the updates in first person as if the explorer itself is running the Twitter feed from Mars. That is so much cooler.

I think an anthropomorphic robot sending back updates from space is much more powerful than a simple press release blurb. If Johnny Five from the movie Short Circuit taught us anything….it’s America loves funny robots with human characteristics. The Mars Phoenix Twitter feed is fun and personable, check out some of these updates:

Looking forward to moving arm today. Will bend the wrist and flex the elbow. It's been stowed for 10 months so I'll move it slowly/gently. 09:24 AM May 28,2008 from web

Looking forward to an exciting day on Mars; My first dig in the dirt! Team calls this a "dig and dump" test of my robotic arm and scoop. 09:05 AM June 01, 2008 from web

I've got plenty of energy from my solar panels, so team has upped my work hours from 9a - 4p to 8a - 6:30p. No OT :( but more science :-) about 18 hours ago from web

I like the format because it celebrates all the small milestones that happen day to day during a mission. As imagery started to comeback they started to link in photos to illustrate what Phoenix was talking about. Additionally if people submit questions to the Twitter feed Phoenix tries to answer them.

@MarsPhoenix What's the purpose of putting the sample in the TEGA oven? about 21 hours ago from web in reply to MarsPhoenix

@charmcitygavin TEGA "cooks" soil samples until they emit gasses that I can "sniff" to learn what they are. I just hope they smell good :) about 19 hours ago from web in reply to charmcitygavin

I think this is a huge step in the right direction for NASA and the positive outcome will be getting people interested in science, engineering, and exploration. Plus there is always the bonus that by making a project anthropomorphic people can become attached to it (I would expect it’s easier to find funding for cute little robots people are attached to). I know the magic of anthropomorphism work on me because I got a little sad when I read:

Martian winter will be tough. I don't think I will survive it, but if I wake up in Spring, I have a "Lazurus" mode and will phone home! 10:29 PM May 26, 2008 from web

Here’s hoping the Phoenix makes it through the winter.

And here’s a link to the Twitter feed.

Complaining about Battlestar is easy.

I know harping on how crappy Battle Galactica has become is a tired old game. Yet I come back to these familiar waters to indulge once again. If you haven’t seen the latest episode you might skip today’s post.

The episode was bad. Is there nothing interesting that they can do with the show in the final season? I guess it stems from the unfortunate fascination the writers have with the Starbuck and Apollo characters. In the past I’ve noted how much I hate the fact that Apollo is constantly assigned new jobs and roles. The list of jobs he’s held throughout the show is ridiculous…to the point that it’s probably shorter to compile a list of roles he has not had. Last week’s episode was essentially wasted giving Apollo a new job that it was obvious he would receive from the outset. Oh, how I loathe him.

Perhaps even stranger was the minor role Starbuck had in the episode. She was all “commander I don’t want do anything silly or irrational” and “I don’t think I can ask pilots to go on such an unpromising mission.” I can’t tell if her character is managed by two writers that never talk to each other or if they are simply providing more evidence for bi-polar disorder. Whatever the case her character was strikingly different from a couple of weeks ago. Perhaps she’s just more responsible when she’s denied access to arts and crafts supplies… [See bottom for wild tangent off this point].

Dawn was surprised that Starbuck was even allowed to walk around the ship. Evidently no one is the least bit skeptical that Starbuck brought back a bunch of Cylons and vouched for them….and then the Cylons made off with the President. Add in the bit of history where Starbuck was dead, then came back, and people assumed she might be a Cylon…you’d think this would be pretty damning evidence.

[Wild tangent]
I derive a bit of enjoyment imaging some of the more mundane tasks that must be carried out on the show that don’t make it into an episode. One that I’ve been particularly relishing over the last few weeks is the packing of the Demetrius for their secret mission. I like to imagine them checking to ensure they’ve packed everything they need to find their way to Earth. Fuel, check. Rations, check. Construction paper, safety scissors, finger paints, check, check, and check. Pastels and color pencils, check, check. Every major character with a name the audience will recognize besides Adama and the president, check and check. Alright, it looks like we’re all loaded and ready to go.

Liberty City Misanthrope

On the whole I'm enjoying Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA IV). [For those of you not in the know - GTA IV is the latest offering in a line of splendidly violent video games chocked full of profanity. It's a beautiful thing]. Actually I'm not being factitious about that - the game is beautiful.

I do have a few quibbles about the game though. First a little back story about the main character – relax, no spoilers. Supposedly the main character is from a nondescript eastern European country where he ran into trouble. Part of his problems seem to stem from the fact that while in the military he mindlessly followed orders and did some horrible things.

Jump forward to when the game takes place and the main character lands in Liberty City (the game analogue to New York City). He immediately starts to follow orders to do horrible things at the bequest of others. I’m already starting to sense that he may be a slow learner. However, this quibble probably has more to do with the general format of the GTA games than anything else. I am magnanimous enough to forgive it.

Second quibble – friends are annoying. In the game your character has a cell phone which is how he receives missions, communicates with other characters, etc. It’s actually a pretty clever game mechanic. Unfortunately I hate it. I don’t like it when my real cell phone rings while I’m trying to accomplish something around the house. Frequently I swear at it when it rings - then I answer it - and have a pleasant conversation. I find I have the same compulsions with the virtual cell phone in the game. I’m in the middle of doing something my character finds interesting (bludgeoning innocent bystanders with a baseball bat) and my cell phone has the audacity to ring. No thank you.

What’s worse is most of the time it’s just other characters that you’ve met in the game calling you and asking to hang out. If you don’t drop what you’re doing (vehicular homicide via garbage truck joyride) and go and play darts with them they later send you whiney text message complaining that you never spend time with them. This drives me insane.

First off, if I’m playing a single player video game it’s probably because I don’t want to be interacting with other people. I don’t appreciate the game hoisting clingy friends onto me during my me time.

Secondly, my character met all the other whiney in-game “friends” by doing wonton acts of homicidal violence on their behalf – often killing multiple innocent bystanders in the course of carrying out their business. Why in the hell would they even want to be in the same room as me? You’d think they’d be happier knowing that I was on the other side of the city far far away from them. Wherever I go people tend to die. I’m like the Angela Lansbury of Liberty City…

Actually that’s a pretty great idea, an Angela Lansbury themed Grand Theft Auto game. Perhaps the video game makers could finally get all the violent video game naysayers to quiet down and start playing. It’d be a great way to extend their reach into an older game playing demographic. Port it over to the Wii and retirement homes aren’t going to know what hit’em! (Note to self – also look into securing the rights for Matlock and Quincy themed sequels.)*

* Yes, I know I mixed fictional characters and the actors that play fictional characters in the paragraphs above. I’m comfortable with this minor sin. I didn’t think saying “I’m like the Jessica Fletcher of Liberty City” was as funny.

The un-unravel-able mystery of ravel.

As fate would have it the analysis of ravel, unravel, and un-unravel fell once again upon my doorstep. It appears that I did a slipshod job of dealing with it the first time and it has come home to roost. I now dare to delve into the subject a second time.

I think there is probably consensus on what unravel means…but let’s start there. According to Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) it means:

1. to separate or disentangle the threads of (a woven or knitted fabric, a rope, etc.).
2. to free from complication or difficulty; make plain or clear; solve: to unravel a situation; to unravel a mystery.

Fair enough. However if you look further down the page you’ll notice that The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition from Dictionary.com defines it as

1. a. To undo or ravel the knitted fabric of.
   b. To separate (entangled threads).

To undo or ravel? To separate or entangle? That's kind of weird… Instinctively one would think to unravel would be the opposite of to ravel. Perhaps we need to take a closer look at the definition of ravel.

Let’s see what our good friend Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) thinks:

1. to disentangle or unravel the threads or fibers of (a woven or knitted fabric, rope, etc.).
2. to tangle or entangle.

Ack! That seems to indicate that its definition is contradictory! Perhaps Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) is just a little confused. Let’s see what The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition from Dictionary.com thinks:

1. To become separated into its component threads; unravel or fray.
2. To become tangled or confused.

Ack! They agree that it makes no sense? Ravel is a contradiction? Ravel can mean to ravel or unravel? That makes my head hurt. It definitely doesn’t help shed light on un-unravel. Which definition of unravel would we be un-ing?

The only take away I can find from the quagmire is that you’re always safe if you use ravel - whether you mean to ravel or unravel. Plus ravel is just fun to say. Give it a try. Ravel.