34 (Re-)Enabling Twitter -> Facebook Posting

2011-03-06T09:37:00.002-05:00

(Most of this is courtesy of @byoogle's comment on a Facebook update I wrote looking for help. So thanks, Brian—I know that nowadays you're all about ensuring that as much information as possible flows into Facebook...)

So let's say you have a Twitter account, and you have a Facebook account. And maybe you have a slightly different set of followers on each, and you want to push out the same status updates to both sets of people (because all your status updates are of the utmost interest to all). And also maybe Facebook has a history of deleting accounts due to bugs in their codebase, and you like the idea of having your online history in more that one place. So ideally, you'd set things up so that all your tweets automatically became Facebook status updates.

Good news, if it's 2009: you can do that pretty easily. Unfortunately, a year or so ago, Facebook stopped third party applications (or at least the official Twitter Facebook application) from updating your actual Facebook status line. They changed things around so that the Twitter app could only create new posts on your wall, with the origin of the post set to the Twitter app. That's mostly fine, although there's definitely a distinction there: in your news stream, Twitter posts from various sources tended to be clustered together, with only the first one visible by default. And there are folks who would block all updates from their news stream if the source was Twitter (though the extra choice for users is a good thing).

Sometime around February 7, this Twitter -> Facebook posting stopped working for just about everyone I know. My random guess is that something in the Facebook API changed, adding in an extra hoop that the Twitter app needed to jump through to get posts working again. (I have some sympathy for Facebook here, as I know what it's like to support a public API, and things do come up that necessitate changes...) There might have been some public announcement about this, and instructions elsewhere on the Internet about re-enabling this integration, but Googling around just led to a bunch of articles that talked about the previous setup, not any that talked about fixing things after the latest change.

As mentioned at the top, my old manager @byoogle came through with some steps that got things working again. Because I'm seeing a bunch of other people I know asking the same question, I'm going to republish them here:

Uninstall the Twitter Facebook app if you were previously using it, by disconnecting your accounts at http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/
Reinstall the Twitter Facebook app from the same page, going through the authorization flow one more time.
Make a test/dummy tweet (this might not strictly be necessary, but I did notice that the first tweet I made didn't flow through).
On the http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ page, ensure that the "Allow Twitter to post updates to: Facebook Profile" box is checked.
Try tweeting again. It may take a few more minutes, but this one should end up on your Facebook wall.

Hopefully this helps some folks. Note that while the integration is working for me, in that tweets are now showing up on my Facebook wall, I am not 100% sure that they're making it into the Facebook news stream, which is how most people end up reading Facebook content. Maybe my own Twitter posts are just being hidden from my own news stream, and others will be visible.

End of an Era (and an Error)

2010-07-01T17:51:00.000-04:00

I'm definitely not tearing up over the announcement that Microsoft is killing the Kin after four months on the market (and I've got to assume that the rumors that only 500 devices sold during that span of time can't be true). But the word that the Sidekick line is being officially discontinued compels me to pause for reflection. Yes, Danger's been owned by Microsoft for a few years now and has pretty much done nothing worth mentioning (in that I'm not going to mention the Kin again), but the old-school Sidekicks were great phones. Not particularly well made phones—in my 5 years as a Sidekick user, I probably went through 4 warranty replacements on the SK1 and 3 on the SK2—but great for their time.

The keyboard was a masterpiece, and I could easily touch type on it while walking down the street. Many of the early 34 entries were compose on it. I guess many folks feel the same way about their Blackberry keyboards, but they never did it for me (plus I had a weird corporate Blackberry with a compressed keyboard). The G1's keyboard should have been as good, but a poorly placed ridge in the trackball area really killed its usefulness.

Speaking of the G1, I suppose it's Android, and not the Kin, that is the true heir to the Sidekick legacy, with Andy Rubin's influence and all. I've been a happy Nexus One user since December, and I'll hopefully find some time to write about my Android experience soon enough.

Nostos

2010-06-14T16:37:00.002-04:00

Oh, hi.

For a blog that stretches back to 2003, 34 hasn't had too many content-free "sorry for the lack of blogging" meta posts (as much as I admire things that are content-free and meta). And maybe this won't be that sort of post (though it pretty much is).

I haven't been blogging here because, well, I've been sharing with the masses in other ways. There's Twitter, of course, which certainly is a convenient way of sharing random thoughts that, back in the day, might have been blogéd. So I'm not going to use 34 to say anything that would be more effective in 140 characters. There are a bunch of ways to share links, and I guess I've settled on Google Reader for the time being (though at the moment it's not behaving like it should, so scratch that). And in any case, part of my job description includes blogging, and when there's a backlog of posts you need to write for work, it's hard to get motivated to blog when you're not being paid.

But I'm on my first day at home of six weeks of paternity leave (thank you, Google!) and while Zach requires most of my attention most of the time, I think I'll be able to devote some of my attention some of the time to blogging. Just to get this out of the way: I don't intend for this to become a parenting blog—I'm going to try to relegate that sort of thing to Twitter. But I see myself blogging some about cooking, maybe a few things about technology, and if I could get through my four-issue backlog, we might just see the return of TWitNY.

And maybe some guest bloggers? Let's see whom or wham I could track down.

What we blog and what we tweet has been confused

2009-06-11T23:35:00.002-04:00

Because some of the Posnicks still care about blogging (instead of, say, Twitter), I wanted to point everyone to Sheryl's new running playlist blog, Finest Runsongs.

What is suck it, Ken Jennings?

2009-03-13T00:50:00.004-04:00

Sheryl raised an intriguing question tonight when she asked whether we liked Larissa Kelly more than Obama. The answer, we decided, was yes.

She's back on the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions after ten long months, and the Posnick household was in a tizzy. Alex laid off on the lechery tonight but, and pardon the spoiler alert, it looks like he'll be getting another chance in the finals.

Oh, and she got the question about Google right. It's like she knows me!

The streak lives

2009-02-26T23:27:00.000-05:00

Looking back on my blog's archives, I'm surprised and impressed to see that I've managed to post at least once per month, every month, since March of 2003. I have a few posts saved in draft that I have trouble motivating myself to finish, but I do want to get something up for February 2009. I don't want to resort to writing a script to automatically convert each of my tweets into a blog entry. That would be cheating.

Of course what I'm going to do instead, which is respond to a personal email with a blog entry, is probably cheating too.

Our friends Haley and Gabe came over sometime last month for dinner, and I made a chestnut soup and shepherd's pie. The soup was mostly just this recipe from the Minimalist and was a good way to use a packet of vacuum-sealed chestnuts from Trader Joe's leftover from Thanksgiving.

The shepherd's pie was something special, and something that I need to make again. It's a little too fussy for an everyday dinner, but it's more time consuming than difficult to prepare. Haley recently wrote me to ask for the recipe, so here's what I can recall doing. Don't worry too much about the proportions of the ingredients, and since the four of us finished it all in one sitting, I guess it makes four servings.

You'll need:

A solid 12" skillet. I used a cast-iron one, but I can't recommend buying cast iron unless you're prepared to take care of it properly.
Around a pound and a half of ground lamb. I'd go with lamb over beef here.
6 normal sized carrots. I used multi-colored carrots from a bag I bought (at Trader Joe's), but I haven't seen them there again.
A cup or so of peas. Frozen peas are your best bet, even if you don't get them from Trader Joe's.
Some pearl onions. I got them in a vacuum pack from... did I mentioned there's a Trader Joe's down the street from my apartment?
6 big, preferably starchy, potatoes.
Around a pint of chicken broth (Trader Joe's low-sodium chicken broth all the way).
Seasonings.

So the basic idea is to brown the ground meat in the pan, adding a small amount of salt and pepper and bit of cumin for flavor. When the lamb's given up a decent amount of fat and juices take out the lamb and put in a bowl lined with paper towels.

(Peel and) halve your pearl onions, peel and chop the carrots into good sized carrot pieces, and add both of those ingredients along with the frozen peas into the pan. There should be enough fat to handle the vegetables, but add some olive oil if need be. Sauté until the carrots are fairly soft, and things start to brown up.

Add the lamb back to the pan along with maybe half a cup of chicken broth–you don't want it too soupy though.

Although I didn't mention it before, it turns out that while you were doing all the previous steps you had a big pot of salted water boiling, and you added the potatoes to the pot (peels on or off). Actually, since I think you really need at least thirty minutes of constant boiling to get potatoes soft enough to mash, you should have done this part first. Once the potatoes are cooked through (slip a knife through them to test), take them out of the water and place them in a large mixing bowl. Gabe will not tolerate lactose, so I mashed them with chicken stock instead of milk to smooth them out, and they tasted great. Add salt and pepper to taste while mashing.

So now you have a bowl of hopefully enough mashed potatoes to cover the pan full of the meat and veg. Use a spatula-type thing to thickly coat the top of the mixture all the way across with mashed potatoes. It's like frosting a meat cake. Definitely try to get a complete coat, so that the steam from the chicken stock doesn't escape and instead helps all the veg finish cooking while it's in the oven.

And into the oven it will go, at say 375 degree for around 30 minutes. The deciding factor as to when it's done is basically the color of the potatoes on the top–cook it as long as you're willing to wait while making sure that the potatoes get golden without burning.

And then eat. You might want to take a picture of it first, which I unfortunately neglected to do.

But seriously, Trader Joe's.

2008 Movie Roundup (with spoilers!)

2009-01-05T00:56:00.001-05:00

Here's list of all movies released in 2008, objectively ranked from best to worst. If your movie didn't make the list, either I didn't see it or something went terribly wrong.

Milk (Spoiler alert: Use by March 4th. lolz!)
Rachel Getting Married (Spoiler alert: The bride is having an affair with Don Draper! wtf‽)
WALL-E (Spoiler alert: The portrayal of 22nd Century Earth's decay is probably overly optimistic. lolz!)
Synecdoche, New York (Spoiler alert: Everyone dies eventually. lolz!)
Religulous (Spoiler alert: Most religious claims are without a sound basis in reality. wtf‽)
Tell No One (Spolier alert: lolz!)
Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Spoiler alert: Woody Allen is going to keep putting Scarlett Johansson in movies until he can get her to take her top off. lolz!)
Doubt (Spoiler alert: Life contains ambiguity. wtf‽)
The Dark Knight (Spoiler alert: There's going to be another sequel. lolz!)
Slumdog Millionaire (Spoiler alert: At the end, the brother is killed by symbolism. wtf‽)
Vantage Point (Spoiler alert: Matthew Fox is the Vantage Point. wtf‽)

Movies that aren't on the previous list but I'm willing to concede do exist. I'm hoping to see them unspoiled.

The Wrestler
Frost / Nixon
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Burn After Reading

Movies that I'm afraid do exist, but undoubtedly shouldn't, based on the trailers, along with what I assume is an accurate spoiler:

Gran Torino (Spoiler alert: Clint Eastwood hates Asians? wtf‽)

Also, I saw Good Will Hunting for the first time in 2008. I'm glad I managed to stay unspoiled all these years.

(You have no choice but to) Consider the Philosopher

2008-12-12T22:32:00.000-05:00

So what exactly would it take to redeem the Times magazine from all those dreadful "Ethicist" and "Questions For..." columns (and get me blogging again in the process)? The list of things is quite short, but you'd better believe an essay about David Foster Wallace's undergraduate thesis on fatalism is near the top.

For what it's worth, trying to make a convincing argument for fatalism via semantics seems like a poor idea to begin with, so I'm not surprised that Foster Wallace was able to demonstrate how such an argument is flawed. And Foster Wallace doesn't weigh in on whether fatalism holds true in general, just on that specific argument for it.

sudo reference 34

2008-11-17T00:56:00.001-05:00

You'd think that if I only blogged when Randall Munroe referenced 34 (the number) in xkcd then that would not entail a lot of blogging. And it doesn't. What's surprising is that it entails any blogging at all, and yet it does.

(Hint: leave your mouse over the comic to get the tooltip-goodness.)

Let's get rational

2008-10-10T17:45:00.001-04:00

Confirming what you already knew: 34 is super sexy.

Debate revelations

2008-09-27T09:51:00.000-04:00

I'm not going to get into any post-debate analysis, other than to say that the folks we were watching the debate with (not surprisingly) thought Obama "won," but I thought there were two relevant revelations offered by the candidates that warrant some further consideration.

First, and least importantly, is Venezuela really a rogue state? Obama made that assertion, lumping it together with Iran. Hugo Chavez likes to run his mouth off against America and in all likelihood has offered material support to FARC rebels/terrorists in Colombia, but last I checked we're still buying oil from them at a record pace. Is that going to change with an Obama presidency?

Second, and most importantly, McCain flat out stated (twice!) that the United States has tortured prisoners under the Bush administration. Not "used enhanced interrogation techniques" against prisoners, but tortured them. Condeelzza Rice has just gone on the record by saying that she and other top-level Bush administration officials (Rumsfeld and Gonzales included) met to authorize these actions. If McCain (rightly) believes that the interrogation techniques amount to torture, would he advocate a war crimes tribunal investigating and prosecuting the officials who authorized them? And, for that matter, would Obama advocate that?

As an aside, check out election.twitter.com during the next debate. It's hypnotic to watch the tweets comes streaming in live, and I think it's a better source of a wider range of opinions during and after the debates than whoever the networks put on television.

Un-suspending my blogage

2008-09-25T09:48:00.002-04:00

Remember when delegates to the 2004 Republican National Convention wore purple heart band-aids on their faces to mock John Kerry? (Being a decorated Vietnam War hero was a liability when running for national office until just recently; you have to admire John McCain's timing.) I'm not advocating this, bu to do you think the nation would respond if Obama supporters started showing up to rallies wearing suspenders? Or if Friday night's debate were held between Barack Obama and a well-accessorized mannequin? I'm just throwing that out there.

If you haven't seen last night's Letterman, you really ought to.

Move over, Babbo

2008-09-23T09:35:00.001-04:00

Momofuku Ko? That's what she said.

Mom, dad: I'm tray.

2008-08-02T23:30:00.000-04:00

I hated having to push carts of trays around while working at John Jay dining hall, and I like saving energy and food, so I can't say that I'm sad to hear that dining hall trays are on the outs. But what of the trayisms?

I don't feel good about this

2008-07-25T17:17:00.000-04:00

Do I agree with David Denby's Batman: The Dark Knight review*? Yes. Also, two and a half hours?

*When I use the term review, I refer to the part of his writing in which he actually expresses an opinion or looks at the film with a critical eye. Invariably, this is about 10% of what he writes; the other 90% is just him recounting the plot.

Better than my video about electronic faxes

2008-06-19T01:14:00.000-04:00

These videos of a talk Brian and I gave to some developers about the AdWords API are apparently causing quite a stir in the Internets (ed: this is not true). If you like Jeff'y but also like debugging SOAP calls, well, why settle for one or the other?

How to Disappear Completely

2008-05-29T19:03:00.002-04:00

Facebook laid the ontological smackdown on me yesterday. I was trying out one of Facebook's new features, importing RSS feeds into your Facebook activities feed, and apparently I tripped something on their end that got me flagged as a suspicious user. (I'm reposting my email to their tech support folks with more details below.) I'm like Richard Scoble, though cuter, and I didn't do anything stupid like try to scrape contact info.

I'm not too confident in getting a timely response from the normal support channels, but fortunately I know a few folks within the company and hopefully things will get sorted soon. One of the amusing things about getting my account suspended was that it generated not one but twenty identical emails from Facebook, sent within a short period of time, each reading "Your account has been disabled for persistent misuse of the site. Please contact disabled@facebook.com for more information." So Facebook apparently has some issues with throttling in their own anti-DoS notification system.

In the meantime, I flat out don't exist as far as Facebook is concerned. Sheryl is still listed as Married, though to no one in particular (getting your Facebook account suspended is not yet grounds for divorce; let's hope Prop. 24 doesn't pass this November). I'm still in a bunch of Facebook pictures, but all the tags pointing to me are gone (if Facebook had the Google engineering-fu they'd have blurred my face). And I don't show up in anyone's Friends list anymore, though no one received notification that I disappeared. My account's foreign key got just a tad more foreign, in the whole CIA-black-site-secret-prison kind of way.

Here's the email I sent to disabled@facebook.com:

Heyas, So I was trying out the new mini-feed RSS feed importation, and I appear to have gotten my Facebook account suspended because of that. I'm not exactly sure how that happened. The first thing I tried to import was a Yahoo! Pipe aggregating all my various activities http://pipes.yahoo.com/pipes/pipe.run?_id=9e9981b0b82d05688d040dce1e068306&_render=rss This appeared to succeed and a new mini-feed entry was created saying that I had created 51 new stories, or something along those lines. (I certainly didn't want the 51 most recent things shared, and I wasn't given control over how many items got shared.) This didn't look like it would be terribly useful, so I wanted to import my blog's feed instead. I didn't see any option to remove the previous Yahoo! Pipes feed, so I just entered the URL for my blog's Atom (not RSS) feed into the import tool, http://thirtyfour.blogspot.com/atom.xml At this point, I was apparently logged out of Facebook and my account was suspended. I'm sorry if my initial Yahoo! Pipes feed ended up importing too many stories and that triggered some sort of flag, but it's definitely not something I had any control over and sounds like something that's more indicative of a buggy backend than anything else. I'd obviously like my account reinstated, and I think I'll refrain from testing any new Facebook features for a while... Cheers, -Jeff Posnick

Mario Kart Popems

2008-05-10T00:02:00.000-04:00

Some random thoughts after playing Mario Kart for a while:

Timed battle mode is no good. Some of my fondest SNES Mario Kart memories are of using the feather to jump behind a barricade and forcing my battle mode opponent to follow me in for the kill.

Girls like Mario Kart. Playing video games with your significant other is a lot more fun, and doesn't leave you with that nasty I-just-played-WoW-for-four-hours-while-my-wife-watched-Law-and-Order feeling.

The question mark blocks are called either "presents" or "fake presents", depending on whether they'll blow you up or not. The shells are obviously "ducks".

You need to power slide. Auto mode is for wimps.

It's been 16 years and Nintendo still hasn't realized that red and green shells are indistinguishable to a sizable minority of the male population.

Little fish, little fish

2008-04-07T01:23:00.001-04:00

My dining schedule being a little thrown off when Sheryl is out of town (she's currently in the air, landing at Newark airpot at hopefully 2:00am-ish), I didn't eat supper tonight until 10:00pm. And I didn't shop for supper, so I had to make do with what was in the pantry. This worked out surprisingly/surpassingly well; a tin of good sardines and some thin pasta were the key ingredients. If I had actually been planning this ahead of time I might have gotten some flat leaf parsley, but I don't feel badly about omitting it. The food was ready in under 15 minutes and was a fishier (not to mention cheaper) pasta with clam sauce.

1 tin of good sardines, packed in oil, but drained

1 or 2 or several serving of dried thin pasta (don't use shapes or tubes for this)

olive oil

1 clove of minced garlic (I used a garlic press)

black and crushed red pepper

Cook the pasta in well-salted to a bit before al dente and drain. Add a liberal amount of olive oil to the pan, along with the minced garlic, black and crushed red pepper, and the sardines. Saute them quickly on medium heat, no more than a minute, breaking up the sardines as you stir. Add the pasta back into the pan and additional olive oil if you feel like it's needed to coat. You really shouldn't put grated cheese on this, amongst any number of other things you shouldn't put on it.

The other recipe to come out the evening involves half a loaf of raisin hazelnut bread from Almondine and half a tub of Nutella, and is not really a recipe as much as it is my (no longer) secret shame.

Recent changes in my life

2008-03-12T02:10:00.000-04:00

I didn't think I'd be able to give up on the Sidekick, but then I got an iPhone.

I didn't think I'd be able to give on World of Warcraft, but then I got Super Smash Bros. Brawl. (Okay, I'll still be playing Warcraft.)

Also, I love my wife.

Damn you, Denby

2008-03-06T09:41:00.000-05:00

I had a feeling it would be David Denby that got me blogging again. I had originally planned to post something a few months ago, when I read his New Yorker piece on Hollywood stars of old, that consisted entirely of the extracted lists of names and descriptions. Think "Greta Garbo, Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart, ..." and "dazzling, solemn, momentous, ..." or something along those lines. Believe me, it might not be interesting now, and I can't find it on the New Yorker's website anymore, but the entire article was a series of series.

Anyhow, it's Denby's review of Vantage Point that has riled me up most recently. Sheryl got it into her head after seeing the preview a few times that this was a movie we wanted to see. I really don't know what the appeal was--I'm going to embarrass her by saying that she feel asleep when we rented Rashomon, so it's not like that kind of of thing fascinates her. But we saw Vantage Point and it was truly a waste of time and money. I had not gotten up to Denby's review of it in that week's New Yorker yet, so out of curiosity I skipped ahead when we got back home. David Denby seems to have liked this movie because there are crowd scenes with different camera angles. Which, if you're filming something that is set at a political rally, that seems hard not to have. I really need to make sure that any movies I see from here on out are not David Denby-approved.

Wedding Photos

2008-02-29T09:46:00.000-05:00

Hey, you know that wedding we had? Well, if you haven't seen them yet, the pictures are up on the photographer's website until May or so. If you scroll through them real fast it's almost like you're watching the wedding video, which, we'll be sure to post on YouTube just as soon as we get it next week. (Or not.)

Some small updates

2008-01-24T17:30:00.000-05:00

A. We're married (yay us!), and much love to all our friends, family, and especially parents who made our wedding so wonderful. There are various sites cropping up around the Internet with unauthorized paparazzi pictures, and I won't condone that sort of thing by linking to them (if you have uploaded any, I guess you can link to them in the comments to this post). When there are some sort of official pictures available, I'll let folks know.

B. We're on our honeymoon (yay us!), and while we obviously have Internet access in the room, we're doing our best not to be huge nerds and we're getting out and enjoying St. Kitts. I've already uploaded some photos to Flickr that you can check out now, and as I take more, more will be uploaded to the same photoset.

The photoset has been updated with a bunch more pictures, and I think Sheryl will be uploading some of her own to her Flickr account as well.

Stand somewhat near your QB

2008-01-14T09:25:00.000-05:00

Sheryl's got nothing to worry about: Tony Romo and I are officially on the outs.

Out of all the things I fault him for in the second half (not throwing the ball away while he could, throwing the ball away for no reason and taking the grounding penalty, throwing the ball downfield when they had so much success with the short game in the first half), the one thing that gets me the most is that Romo ignored Witten for most of the game. Witten lives to convert third downs up the middle, and while he had a good game with seven catches, some of those long lobs at the end should have gone his way–it's not like the receivers downfield were any more open.

Last year's playoff finish was heartbreaking, and Romo had my sympathy. This year, it was Romo's team to lead and it was Romo's game to lose. I'm not itching for another quarterback (and perhaps more relevantly, neither is Owens), but it's now twelve years since the Cowboys won a playoff game, and regardless of how he plays during the regular season next year, I'm going to be afraid it'll be thirteen.

Rabbit, rabbit

2008-01-01T13:36:00.000-05:00

2008 is an election year–though how would we really know until the Daily Show comes back? And while I don't think 2008 is going to be anything close to 2004 from the perspective of polito-blogging, I might as well ring in the new year by mentioning the talk of a third-party Michael Bloomberg candidacy.

I'll go on the record now with the opinion that not only is Bloomberg going to run but that when we go to the polls in November 2008, we'll be choosing between a Mormon, a partly African-American, and a Jewish guy with "zealously guarded personal privacy" (which is just about as far as the Times goes by way of innuendo). I don't know whether the result of the election will amount to America putting aside or just carefully ranking its prejudices.

A Bloomberg candidacy will inevitably lead to discussions of whether he would be stealing votes from Republicans or Democrats. In anticipation of that, here's the obligatory link to information on alternative voting systems, and along with a dream of abolishing the electoral college, I'll pine away for a real democracy.

Candidates@Google

2007-12-01T17:09:00.000-05:00

As a follow-up, there's a Times article today about the Candidates@Google series, and Obama's talk is up on YouTube.

Blogging 2.1

2007-11-15T02:24:00.000-05:00

As an update to my earlier cop-out for not really blogging regularly, let me say that the best way to keep up to date on things I find interesting (assuming you'd want to do such a thing) is to subscribe to the RSS feed of my shared RSS items (it's a bit meta, which is bonus points).

This is a bit different from my feed of del.icio.us bookmarks, in that it's just things I come across in the course of reading my RSS feeds that I find interesting, rather than things I want to permanently bookmark. I use NetNewsWire (and it's web counterpart, NewsGator Online, although mostly NetNewsWire now that I have a Mac at work) to share items, but there's similar functionality in Google Reader.

The items are also shared in a little sidebar to the right on this blog, and via FeedHeads on Facebook, but there's nothing like reading an RSS feed of someone else's shared RSS items in a real RSS reader.

Obama '08

2007-11-15T02:05:00.000-05:00

There were a number of food-related events back in the NYC office that I missed this week, but one major perk of being out in Mountain View was getting to hear Barack Obama speak. Ideally this would have been in person, but an hour before he was scheduled to appear the line to enter the auditorium was already snaked around a couple of buildings, so I had to settle for watching it over video conference from another building. Which, I could have done from NYC as well, but shush. It was cool just being on campus to feel the excitement associated with his visit.

Many things have gone very, very wrong under the Bush presidency, and I don't know how much of it Obama (or anyone else) would be able to undo. There have been many disservices perpetrated against this country and the world, and I'm not going to say that having a president that lacks intelligence, moral authority, and sound judgment is the chief disservice, it's certainly at the root of it all. Listening to Obama speak, and imagining what it would be like to have a competent president who had both this country's and this world's interests in mind, I teared up a bit. It's a sad state of affairs that such a basic concept should be so moving, but we already knew that, right?

Things to watch when you're watching

2007-11-12T02:19:00.000-05:00

After a nice weekend break with the always hospitable Mirers, I'm holed up in a hotel in Palo Alto again. The cable here is different and frightening (Fox is channel 8? Football is on at 10:00am?), and I distrust it, so I've turned to the Internets for video entertainment.

I never got fully caught up to Ze Frank's The Show, despite the fact that there are no more new episodes. I started watching last summer when I had another long hotel stay in Redmond, and I've come back to a bit, watching a couple of episodes here and there.

I watched some of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 shorts with Petey last night, and I watched some more today back in my hotel room. I have some of the full-length episodes queued up on Netflix, but I'm almost positive that Sheryl will hate them, so watching 10 minute mini-films on YouTube is probably my best way to get a fix.

I started watching Batman Begins, which I had ripped to my hard drive, but stopped after 15 minutes or so and went out searching for online episodes of the old Batman: The Animated Series instead. It ran on Fox weekday afternoons when I was a kid, and it's such a wonderful show. AOL video has a large collection of episodes, mainly from the first and best season, which in my mind completely justifies the AOL/Time Warner merger.

Joost is allegedly a source for interesting content, but after scrounging around for an invitation, I found that it's mainly just reality show rejects and, like, hockey. But there is a Comedy Central channel, and one of the featured shows is Stella, which I can't get enough of. So I've watched a couple of those.

No rundown of recommended Internet video would be complete without linking to the manatee bit from Dr. Katz, of course. So there you go.

Surprise!

2007-11-07T03:19:00.000-05:00

In all likelihood, this is the least obscene video ever filmed in a hotel room:

MLK, Jr. Wedding Weekends FTW

2007-10-28T23:21:00.000-04:00

It looks like Sheryl and I will be spending our first wedding anniversary attending the Wagner-McCoy-Ghan wedding-cum-hyphenation-fest. Congratulations, kids!

Did I mentioned that Ryan lived with me for a few weeks at the start of Senior (his Junior) year?

Rachel Nichols sunk my dinghy

2007-10-22T20:20:00.000-04:00

Why is that girl I sat next to (well, with my eyes) in Economics classes on television all the time? It seems Rachel Nichols is starring in the new movie, P2.

As far as I can tell from the title and from watching the commercials fly by on my DVR, the movie is about Ms. Nichols playing Battleship against various foes (in a parking lot, maybe?). Which, given that she took a class on Game Theory from an Ivy League institution, my money's on the blonde.

Separate vocations

2007-10-22T20:07:00.000-04:00

My lovely wife (sic, dude) Sheryl is now a lovely food blogger person. Soup and Bread, so named because you can dip bread into soup, is a great way for me to remember all the stuff that I ate, and a great way for you to read about all the stuff that I ate.

I'll likely be posting any future cooking entries there as well, but Sheryl clearly has the talent in the family.

They still feed me, though...

2007-09-21T23:20:00.000-04:00

On top of having serious problems with the Blogger CAPTCHAs, I've found that the automatic paper towel dispenser in the bathroom at work fails to register when I wave my hands in front of it. Google really doesn't think I'm a human being.

All Women Love...

2007-09-21T23:11:00.000-04:00

Julianne Moore

Maria Bello

Jenna Fischer

Liv Tyler (I'm not sure about how universal this is, but Sheryl loves her)

Jennifer Connelly

All women hate Jennifer Love Hewitt.

Am I missing anyone?

The trouble with patents

2007-09-03T01:06:00.000-04:00

Many bits have been spilled expounding on the troubles with America's patent system. The bulk of the criticism centers around the granting of overly broad patents for less-than-novel ideas, and the existence of "patent trolls"–organizations that hold a portfolio of patents for the express purpose of suing successful companies.

Here is my contribution to the debate over patent reform: why on earth do illustrations patent applications consist of black and white clip art from the '70s? Are we supposed to be excited about the technology behind GPay on a potential GPhone (which, I definitely don't have any inside information about) when the patent application was designed in ClarisWorks? Even Apple's patent applications look shitty. For reals, guys.

Et tu, Bruni?

2007-08-29T08:51:00.000-04:00

(Not to be confused with Et tu, etouffée?)

We don't like Franny's. Admittedly, this opinion was formed after one visit, which is not the most objective way to evaluate a restaurant. But Sheryl and I both had a distinctively unpleasant experience, and that's not the sort of place you tend to give a second chance.

Frank Bruni busted out two stars for the joint today, which is pretty mind-blowing when you think about it. (And my last name isn't even Chodorow.)

So that's something. In the time since eating at Franny's, we've been to Noodle Pudding several times, which has much better overall Italian, both Lunetta and Bocca Lupo, which do small Italian plates better (though admittedly not with homemade sausage), and are itching to go to Lucali, where the pizza is supposed to rival Di Fara's.

Maybe this is just Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens bias kicking in. We do like Helios, though, which is only a few blocks from Franny's on in Prospect Heights.

(Edit: There's a lively discussion on Chowhound about the two star review–perhaps discussing Franny's is not longer verboten?)

Some Steve Winwood Help? Anyone? Adam?

2007-08-26T20:22:00.000-04:00

Hi Everyone,

Can someone please tell me the name of the OTHER Steve Winwood song that isn't "High Life"? Please? It's famous. And it has the lyrics, "And I don't wanna know." Or something that sounds like that. You'd know it if you heard it.

Does this make sense? Please help.

Who Knew Manhattan Mini-Storage Had It In Them?

2007-08-16T11:32:00.000-04:00

Oh my.

Ow

2007-08-14T18:00:00.000-04:00

I had my third wipe-out while running this past weekend. For the third time, sections of my knees and their surrounding areas are scraped raw, with oh-so-feminine Band-Aids clumsily draped atop. Large black-and-blue marks surround this display, making me look both bad-ass and beaten. I wonder what people think. I’ve been limping now for two days at work, and no one has said a thing, so I basically think people are too absorbed with their AP Physics manuscripts to care about my gait.

Although I really went flying this time, right at the corner of Congress and Henry, and hurt myself far worse than the other two times (I had trouble actually moving my leg for a day or two), this fall pales in comparison to my first.

It was Summer 2005, and I was pretty out of it and bummed in general. I needed to concentrate on something, so I decided training for the NY Marathon was a good goal toward which to channel my life. I was a tad obsessed, which you kind of have to be while marathon training. I would NOT miss a run, ever ever ever, and became an insufferable bitch if someone tried to make plans with me at a time when I was supposed to run. Summer 2005 was no fun.

Anyway, one Sunday I set out for my longest training run yet – 8 miles. I, being silly, never ran (and still don’t) with a MetroCard or a phone, because I’m a badass. Or lazy. Either one. I loped from my East Village apartment down to Battery Park and then up the West Side Highway. I think I was on mile 5 or so as I ran toward Chelsea Piers, Whitney Houston cranked in my earbuds. I was into it. I was feeling it. “I HAVE NOTHING…NOTHING…NOOOTHIIIIIIIING..” And then…I went FLYING. I suppose my toe caught on an off patch of road; I have no idea. My iPod and dear Whitney went in one direction, and I fell knee, belly, and face first into a patch of dirt. I had managed to fall right into the one unfinished section of bike path, ensuring that my now raw and bleeding knees and elbows were caked with mud and rocks. Sweat, blood, raw skin, rocks. A 2-mile walk from home. Perfect.

I had managed to fall directly in front of an NYC Sanitation truck filled with about 5 men who, oh dear God, came running over to see if I was okay. They picked me up and escorted me into this random shed (and I went without question…?) where they showed me a sink and a bar of soap. They were lovely men and very concerned, but the only thing that got me through the pain and embarrassment was cracking up inwardly as they all watched, confused and awkward, as I cleaned myself up. They just had no idea what to do or where to put themselves. One might have held out a tube of Neosporin from an ancient first-aid kit. I kept thinking of topics with which to put them at ease. “Hot out, huh?” and “I hope my iPod is okay,” did the trick.

I limped the whole 45-minute walk home and still have the scars to remember Summer 2005. (I actually proudly - or nervously? – showed these to Jeff on our first date. And who ever said I’m not charming?)

This time I stumbled and fell to “Miss You Much,” which is awesome. I was probably jamming and gyrating mid-run and lost track of cracks in the sidewalk.

I never understood how people could get used to falling while doing gymnastics, or skiing, or horseback riding, but this time around let me see that I might have a bit of athlete in me yet. Mid-air, I kind of thought to myself, “ah well, here we go again,” hit the ground, cursed, and popped up for my walk home.

Meet the Mutatoes

2007-07-29T12:55:00.000-04:00

The aubergine-with-a-nose finally has some friends. Some weird friends.

Whither /.?

2007-07-20T22:51:00.000-04:00

You know what's no longer relevant, in any shape or form? Slashdot. It's kind of sad, as it used to be the be-all and end-all of technology/nerd news sites, but any number of other technology blogs out there have supplanted it. The articles you do find there nowadays are at least a half-day behind the publication time of information from other sites, and forget any insightful discussion threads (never Slashdot's strong point).

I wonder where it went wrong? Is it not Web 2.0-y enough? (Pardon the terminology–I just had to rinse my mouth with a shot of bourbon to atone.)

Good luck Jeff'y

2007-06-22T23:18:00.000-04:00

I haven't had the chance to do this in a while: much mazel to Adam and Vanessa, who are very just recently engaged. To be married.

Which, if you're keeping track, makes a perfect four-for-four in former roommates getting engaged/married. I'm just that much cooler than Dane Cook, as I don't even expect you to put out in return.

Fertile ground

2007-06-17T00:12:00.000-04:00

There's nothing like the Times Magazine to put an end to a month-long, self-imposed (adding an air of mystery to actual laziness) blogging hiatus.

First, the snark:

People can’t accept failure in this country, which probably explains why kids are addicted to fantasy baseball, with its illusion of mastery.

Thank you, Deborah Solomon, for the least insightful statement-cum-interview-question about fantasy baseball, ever. Ms. Solomon was fortunate that in interviewing interview Lou Pinella this week, she found a misogynistic old coot who actually leaves her looking like the more sympathetic of the interviewee-interviewer pair.

Diving back into familiar territory (water can, after all, be territorial, we come to The Ethicist. This week, Randy Cohen opines that you have an ethical obligation to inform potential house buyers that the former occupant, your mother, killed herself. Because of ghosts or something. Of course, if you happen to be upset about your mother's untimely death then it's okay not to say anything about it. Acknowledging that parental suicide might be a difficult topic to discuss with random strangers is as close as The Ethicist has ever gotten to understanding human behavior and emotion in his column.

Moving on to matters nearer and dearer, and since this is the Times Magazine, about 18 months too late to be topical: there's a piece on Chinese gold farmers. The article didn't offer anything that hasn't been covered before.

One thing I did like about the web version of this week's Magazine was the slideshow matching real folks up with their online avatars. WoWers weren't very well represented; I was definitely not approached to bust out the axes and pointy hat and ape Antepo. Oh well–there's always next week.

How to keep up on things

2007-05-15T23:58:00.000-04:00

Maybe you like arts and crafts and films and such, but aren't so good at keeping on top of what's new. The Times has a thorough movie review section on Fridays, but what about new music, or new books, or new Wii games? (I'm all about Cooking Mama: Cook Off.) Reading one paper's coverage isn't going to let you know about everything new.

What we need is... meta-coverage. And when you need meta-coverage, there's Metacritic. I've found it seriously useful to add the individual RSS feeds for their Film, Music, and Wii sections, and depending on your tastes other sections are probably of interest as well. I don't care so much about the actual review aggregation and scoring aspect of the site, but getting release information delivered to my RSS reader is great.

Administriviata

2007-05-02T00:11:00.000-04:00

So there's nothing like blogging about not blogging, but we obviously haven't really been blogging. I finally have something I'm proud to blame it on, though (World of Warcraft never being a source of pride for me): Sheryl got me a Wii for my birthday. It came a bit late after some eBay shipping mishaps, but it's here now and we're loving it. The extra remote and Zelda that I ordered can't get here fast enough, but in the meantime taking turns at Wii Sports is a great way to kill the evening.

Look for a Wii-party in the 'hood when we get ourselves organized!

...and sometimes, well, he studies you.

2007-05-02T00:03:00.000-04:00

Okay, you know what? I'd probably link to this article on duck phalluses on the basis of the text alone. But my goodness, look at the lead picture! And the caption!

A guide to recognizing your Robert Downey Jr. movies

2007-04-06T10:08:00.000-04:00

The last two movies I've seen are A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints (via Netflix) and Zodiac. Well, I watched about 34% of Dave Chapelle's Block Party, but I've already seen that and it was mainly an excuse to play around with my new AppleTV (which was a great purchase). But I pretty much saw those two movies back to back.

You can't call either a "Robert Downey Jr. movie" unless you're grasping at (cocaine-laced?) straws for a clever blog title. Downey Jr. plays the grown-up protagonist of Saints, appearing in about a third of the movie, and a crime reporter who is in... well, what percentage of seventeen hours is fourty minutes? He's in some portion of Zodiac.

I thought Saints was extremely well done. Some of the scenes that take place during the Downey Jr. character's youth in Astoria, Queens have the intensity of Spike Lee at his prime; other flash backs are more reflective and do an effective job of explaining how the Downey Jr. character got to be where he is today–a memoirist coming home to see his dying father. The present day scenes are as touching and believable as anything I've seen in a movie in a while. The fact that the movie is effectively a meta-memoir in which Downey Jr. is a proxy for the virgin writer/director Dito Montiel, who adapted his book to film, makes it even more my kind of movie.

Going back and reading Alice's comments on Zodiac after seeing it myself, I can see exactly why it is her kind of movie. Unfortunately, I don't share the same interests that Alice uses to identify with the protagonist, Jake Gyllenhaal, and the director, David Fincher–I can honestly saw that I spent one hour in Butler library as an undergraduate, and that was to read The Republic when it got too noisy one night on Carman 11. I found Zodiac to be an hour of somewhat compelling hour of setup followed by an hour and a half of... obsessive investigation and no payoff.

There's one scene towards what I thought was the end (I even woke Sheryl up to tell her it was the last scene) in which Gyllenhaal winds up in a basement with the man he currently believe to be the Zodiac killer. The scene provides what some genuine suspense. But the suspense has no true resolution, and the movie trudges through with another hour or so scenes of investigation and false leads. I interpreted that scene as Fincher thumbing his nose at those of us who came into the movie expecting something in the mold of his previous films. A more charitable explanation is that he was throwing us a bone to help sustain through the rest of the movie.

The hallmark of previous Fincher movies is the big reveal at the end. He obviously can't pull that off effectively with a movie based (quite meticulously) on real events. Instead, he pulls a meta-reveal on the audience–the serial killer movie we all thought we were seeing is actually a movie about doing research. Joke's on us, I guess.

Additional addendum

2007-04-04T19:32:00.000-04:00

As an addendum to the previous post, if you're not sure whether Easter Peeps are kosher for Passover, you're not religious enough that it matters.

Observance observation

2007-04-04T08:45:00.000-04:00

If you're not sure whether you're a Sephardic or Ashkenazi Jew, then you're not religious enough for it to matter whether you eat egg matzah, corn, rice, etc. on Passover.

I'm not sure how high this page needs to get in the Google rankings before it becomes official halachic opinion.

Times facts

2007-03-30T22:53:00.000-04:00

Did you know that you can use ginormous in a Times article? It's a fact.

When you double-click on a word in a Times article, a new window opens with the dictionary definition of the word, which is never something I expect and annoys me every time. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to see what happens when you double click on ginormous.

It also seems that you can revise articles without running corrections or editors notes at the Times, too.

Can too much Vincent D'Onofrio be a bad thing?

2007-03-26T15:08:00.000-04:00

Why oh why hasn’t any rapper yet sampled the Law and Order theme song? Think about how perfect it would be:

boom BOOM—doo doo doo doo dooooo
(rap rap rap rap)
boom BOOM—doo doo doo doo
doooooo (rap rap rap)
doooooo (rap rap rap)
Wah wah wah wahhhh...
boom BOOM—doo doo doo doo doooo
(rap rap rap)

You get the idea, right? Isn't it PERFECT?

I just don't give a fuck whom she marries

2007-03-25T23:37:00.000-04:00

Prof. Bruce King, by way of Mark Twain, by way of LEGOs.

Oggle my LEGO

2007-03-06T22:08:00.000-05:00

I was big into LEGO (is that how we're capitalizing it? OKAY!) from an early age. Nothing too elaborate, and while I did grow up to be some sort of engineer, sort of, I doubt that those blocks had anything to do with it. Maybe if we had Mindstorms back in the day that would have been influential.

My favorite LEGO-related site is The Brothers Brick. It's mostly a site for hot LEGO brick-pics, but there are all sort of LEGO art, it seems.

I remember downloading LDraw and briefly giving it a play, but I'm not much for CAD programs, and isn't the point of LEGO the physical interaction with the bricks? I suppose it's useful for planning your construction ahead of time.

And then there's the new LEGO MMORPG, NetDevil. Will it supplant my WoWage? No.

And death i think has no RSS feed

2007-03-04T17:43:00.000-05:00

My mother now has a blog, Alive & Kicking. With Judy Miller now biding her time in Aspen with Scooter (not Scotter) Libby, watching the pines grow, mom is now the most published Barnard '68 alumna.

Shelfari: 34% More Delicious

2007-03-01T09:08:00.000-05:00

Delicious Library isn't particularly delicious and is definitely not del.icio.us. (It's a virtual bookshelf for all your books, DVDs, CDs, etc., for the uninitiated.) When it came out a few years back it was heralded for its slick, albeit non-standard, interface and for the novel ability to import, well, novels, by scanning their barcodes using your Mac's camera. Flash forward to the present and it still looks pretty slick–Apple's taken some cues from their original interface and applied them to its own programs, which might make it standard but more likely makes Apple non-standard. Importing items via camera scanning is still pretty novel and still about twice as time consuming as just entering the UPC/ISBN by hand, given the amount of time it takes to line up a good picture. And Delicious Library remains a niche piece of eye candy because it never supported the next obvious step once you've inputted everything you own: sharing that information with your friends over the Internet to prove that you've got better taste than they do. (Hint: don't scan in your Dan Brown collection and no one will have to know about it.) Delicious Library's reach never extended beyond your OS X desktop.

Enter Shelfari. There are probably other social-networking-bookshelf sites, but Shelfari is the one I happened to come across yesterday, and I've already entered about half my bookshelf, so I think I'm set on using it. (This is similar to how I've no interest in re-entering my friends in Facebook or My Space; yes, Friendster sucks, but I'm lazy.)

Shelfari definitely has its faults. Its searches are slow, at least until it deals with the uptick in traffic its getting after its launch (or until it migrates off of ASP.Net...). It's hard to find the correct edition of the book you want in its search results, and many common book covers are missing. There's no RSS feed of a contact's bookshelf, though they do have a Flash-based badge for webpages to share your own bookshelf (look to the right on 34, with the other countless badges).

Still, it's a fun concept. You can check out My Shelf (updates still in progress) and if you sign up yourself, add me as a contact.

Oh, and if you for some reason did import a large library into Delicious Library already, you can export that and import it into Shelfari. So there is some use for it, after all.

Wedding 2.0

2007-02-12T22:47:00.000-05:00

The posnick.org domain I registered a while back with Google Apps for Your Domain came with some free web space. Unfortunately, you have to use Google's Page Creator interface to create the site (though there is some HTML editing if you fight a bit).

I put up a little wedding page there, with information about our registry (hint: Adam took all our plates when he moved out, and we're getting desperate) and the date and location.

Times scientific quote of this time period

2007-02-12T20:55:00.000-05:00

From this article on facial recognition:

"The first day we put the electrode in, it was shocking," Dr. Tsao said.

My mother's brain is fortunately behaving quite nicely, after a week in the hospital following a stroke. Unlike the patients mentioned in the article, she has no trouble recognizing faces, or talking or walking or doing just about everything. She should be leaving the hospital tomorrow. We're all terribly thankful and appreciate everyone's support during the past week.

From Russia, with Meta-puns

2007-01-31T09:15:00.000-05:00

I'm a little behind on my New Yorkers, just like I'm a little behind on blogging, and on my RSS feeds, and on the books I'm reading, and on pretty much everything except World of Warcraft, in which I'm progressing quite nicely through the Burning Crusade, thank you very much. I did get to some of last week's issue before this week's came, and thought the piece on Putin's Russia was well worth reading.

I had a general idea that things were corrupt in Russia, and Colbert's cries for Putin '08 were appropriately biting, but the article gave a seemingly thorough account of just how bad things are there.

The parents of one of Sheryl's friend are planning a trip to Moscow for some unknown reason. (Maybe they're assassins?) The father was nervous about his daughter moving to NYC because of a bad experience he had in the city in the '70s, when he said someone chased him down the street holding a board with a nail in it. I can just imagine what they'll have to say about Russia.

Semi-Fully-Homemade

2007-01-27T01:22:00.000-05:00

Tonight was cook-y night at Shay Gordon-Posnick.

I finally opened up the pasta maker that Sheryl got me for Chanukah and gave it my best. Making pasta is uncomfortably close to baking, something that I avoid at all costs, but damned if I didn't want to eat dinner tonight. Sheryl was a big help, as using the pasta machine is a two-person task: one to feed the sheets into the cutting rollers, and the other to catch the resultant strand of pasta before they touch our icky countertop. Despite approaching the endeavor with that less than generous attitude, I guess I fared all right. I'll definitely be less stressed out the next time I use the machine. The pasta was a good texture, but perhaps a bit too thick and definitely too eggy.

Sheryl picked up the slack and made a wonderful dessert: chocolate pudding. Did you know that you could actually make chocolate pudding? The wonder.

London food gave me a rasher

2007-01-18T01:30:00.000-05:00

We went to Europe to eat. I like buildings and museums and stuff, but I went to Europe to eat. Sheryl went to Europe to eat too, I’d assume. Maybe I should ask her.

Going to London to eat is recommended, but only if it is the sixteenth century (and only then if you like your mutton charred). Inhabitants of the past half-millennium are better served by any culinary option available in the neighborhood of their particular space-time. I lived in London for 18 weeks and knew this to be true, but I was foolish and let my desire to show Sheryl My London trump my stomach.

(You’re going to have to forgive any accuracies in this retelling; I’ll remember as best I can, but some details might be changed for the sake of edible drama. Take it all with a grain or two of salt.)

Our first meal was the one I spent four years looking forward to: a return to Japan Centre. While training in London I worked with some kids from the Tokyo office, and someone back in Japan must have told them about this place, because starting the first week in London they were heading there for dinner after work. When I’d go with them it was a real treat: the setup was traditional Japanese lunch counter; you’d sit on a stool and order one of the katsu curry dishes, and the cooks would prepare them in front of you. They’d start you off with miso soup, though, and refills were free (if you could catch their attention with a well-timed sumimasen). The katsu, rice, pickles, miso soup and a delicate tofu block would go for £7. It was about as cheap a dinner as you could get in the city.

London is expensive.

In the interim, Japan Centre has lost its lunch counter (or, more accurately, the lunch counter has been reappropriated as a sushi counter; not a good sign). Some space that was previously devoted to Japanese manga and magazines was cleared away to make room for two rows of tables, and a sit-down restaurant, Toku, was born. The menu at Toku bore some similarities to what I remembered. There was pork katsu, but it was served with only an unjustified salad and a single bowl of miso (sumimasen be damned). And it was £12. So that was a bit discouraging.

We spent a lot of the time in London attempting to eat at Express Coffee Co., which despite the name makes some decent pizza while simultaneously not being Pizza Express. Express Coffee Co. was one of the places in London that was never, ever open. The majority of the Prets and Eats we passed by were never, ever open, either. Our sleep schedules were more than a bit off and we tended to pass by all these places well after the lunch rush, but you’d think they’d be occasionally open, no? We did manage to find a couple of Prets and a Nero coffee house that were open late (read: after 7:00pm), and I do like Pret sandwiches. There’s been a mini-explosion of them in midtown (tuna salad everywhere!), and I’d be very pleased if we got one down by the Brooklyn office. Packaged triangular sandwiches from Marks & Sparks also played a large role in our not-starving on Christmas Eve.

Christmas Day we ate at a Lebanese restaurant. We also ate a very filling meal in Chinatown (Peking duck; a few veggie and beef dishes) on what I also think was Christmas Day, but probably wasn’t.

The highlight of our London food experience must have been Wagamama (because if not, what was?). Wagamama is a fun little chain of hippie-crunchy Japanese noodle shops. I had a chicken chili ramen bowl which was lovely, and the wasabi chocolae mousse cake was better than it sounded. But a few months back Sheryl and I wandered into Momofuku on a Sunday afternoon and managed to get seated–it’s really hard for any ramen to stack up to that, and when you factor in the exchange rate, Momofuku was much cheaper.

Then of course there was Paris, which was another, tastier beast entirely. I’ll post about that next.

The Holiday, sans Food

2007-01-11T13:49:00.000-05:00

So this is the plan. 34 is set to retire at age 34. We’re going to spend our lives traveling around the world from city to city. Once there, we’ll wake up around noon, walk for hours and hours and then more hours, fall into bed exhausted and full of local cuisine around 8, and then muster up enough energy to play a game or two of Travel Scrabble. Repeat the next day, and then next. That’s the basic summation of our European jaunt over the holiday, so you’ll have to excuse me if sitting behind a computer for 8+ hours just isn’t cutting it, at least for this week.

London and Paris are of course lovely cities, but become even lovelier when you’re newly engaged with not an obligation or care in the world. All was even more golden as soon as I calmed the eff down and realized that every day didn’t need to be supermegachockfull of plans (I may be extremely lazy when it comes to, say, opening my mail or returning phone calls, but when it comes to planning my fun it is SERIOUS BUSINESS). Also, on the first leg of our trip, we really didn’t have a choice, thanks to Jesus. London closed down completely—as in, no subways, commuter trains, or busses were running AT ALL—on the eve and day of his birth. Actually, let’s not put all the blame on him. The whole city of London kind of closes down after 7pm when you’re not in the busiest areas, which made for a rather creative hotel picnic of store bought food (which I’d say was one of our best London meals).

But I can’t talk about food, because Jeff is talking about food.

It was great to see Jeff’s old apartment building and neighborhood, and to walk the walks he did when he lived in London. I’d honestly say we walked minimum 7 miles per day when we were there, because why not? We hit up the British Museum, home to my favorite room of all time, the Reading Room. When I get my Barbie Dream House, I want a circular, high-ceilinged room with rainbows of books along the walls.

We spend a good hour in a bookstore giggling at the odd British versions of familiar book covers, found the dinky little hostel I stayed in 4.5 years ago when I backpacked, and as a lil' treat, saw Avenue Q, which was just as clever as I remembered.

Our hotel in Paris was darling and Parisian (whatever) and just lovely and I wanted to just eat it up. It was in the Latin Quarter, and set up like many residences in Paris—a large outer door opens to reveal a cobblestoned courtyard and separate apartments. There just really isn’t a bad angle in Paris—every simple glance to the left or right could be a framed photo.

The first day in Paris was bitter cold, the kind where your skin hurts and you want to die and can’t imagine willingly being outside. And so we spent part of it waiting outside, standing basically still for over an hour to get into the Musee d’Orsay. My toes are still cold. But the museum, which used to be an old train station, was worth it. In my Barbie Dream House, I wouldn’t mind a Van Gogh or two, and maybe a few of Renoir’s pastels. The pastels, all kept in darkened rooms, were so soft and glowy and gorgeous.

Thankfully, the weather warmed up a bit the next day. And so we walked, and walked some more. Of course we Eiffeled it, and Arc de Triumped it and Lourved it, but you can see all that in the pictures. We enjoyed a lovely home-cooked meal at Jeff’s co-worker’s apartment. Remy, the couple’s 7-year-old son, speaks perfect English and French, and has been everywhere from America to Barcelona to Shanghai. He’s the cutest little urban sophisticate I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and didn’t hold it against me that I was confused about the kiss-on-both-cheeks greeting. It’s for kids, too? Crazy Parisians.

I REALLY want to talk about marketing and food...but I can't. Jeff, I'm giving you a week. ONE WEEK!

The wee snag in our vacation was the awful virus I came down with a few days before we were to head out. My future husband saw perhaps the 100% worst side of me – feverish, sniveling, queasy, you name it. The worst part, though, was that I was as crabby as can be. A perfectly snotty lil’ bitch. And he handled it like a champ – banana crepes in bed, French cold medicine, bottles of seltzer (SELTZER, not WATER)… whatever I wanted. I’m such a lucky gal.

And now it’s back to Brooklyn. We couldn’t have asked for a better way and place to celebrate the new year and our engagement. It’s definitely nice to be home, back in a routine, but mmm, vacation. How I do miss it.

The trip in photos

2007-01-07T23:20:00.000-05:00

I took my sweet time about it, but our London and Paris pictures are finally fully titled and tagged on the Flickr site.

Some point down the line I'm going to blog about our culinary experiences in Europe, but I want to wait a bit until I forget everything first.

Required reading

2007-01-07T22:01:00.000-05:00

While I don't bother much with the Science Times anymore, this past week's piece on free will (which is to say, the lack thereof) is of obvious interest.

Google's Blogger site search doesn't work very reliably, and works not at all for articles I imported from the old blog, but here are some links to previous treatments of free will and determinism: Late night metaphysics, Late night follow-ups, In which I horrify just about everyone. (And then Must see TV.) There were quite a few comments going back and forth on that first post, but unfortunately they were lost in the site migration.

A Moderately Short Engagement 2: European Vacation!

2006-12-21T00:32:00.000-05:00

A few things: I asked Sheryl Paige Gordon Posnick to marry me last Saturday morning at 12:51am, and see said sure, so now we're getting married. Or, at some point in the future we're getting married, but now we're fiancéed. We're all happy about that–even Ben, whose post The abyss gazes also into you, Jeffy had nothing to do with my engagement after all.

We will be heading off to London and then Paris tomorrow, staying through January 2. If you were expecting any new bloggages in the next 10 days or so, you'd face disappointment regardless of where we were, but at least we have an excuse now. What you should expect is a lot of pictures on the Flickr site once we return.

Here's the standard blog copout though: some posts I chose at random from the first few months of the archives to occupy your attention. 34 used to be bustling; if you poke around a bit you can find some of Bananaebert's original movie critiques.

A Man, a Plan, a Wheel: Unicycle

Love's Labours Lost

Morning commute

A foray

Musings on the train

Fellowship Baptist Creation Science Fair 2001

Go Jumbos

2006-12-12T23:27:00.000-05:00

Sigh.

This is the same publication that made fun of me, by name, for adorably headlining my article about Billy Joel coming to Tufts with something like, "Campus in a Piano Man State of Mind" or "Students Go to Extremes over Piano Man's Arrival." I don't even remember what it was. Assholes. It was cute.

Or an office chair that harvests methane...

2006-12-10T20:20:00.000-05:00

It's about time someone put Big Entropy in its place.

TimesMagazineLand in further decline

2006-12-03T12:57:00.000-05:00

A scant two months after recommending that an office worker circulate an undoubtedly confidential memo listing everyone's salaries, the increasingly inaptly named Ethicist recommends hiding a boss's pedophilic tendencies. This goes beyond being unfamiliar with office politics.

Zzyzx Frank

2006-11-28T08:58:00.000-05:00

I saw Ze Frank coming out of Starbucks yesterday morning, which isn't too surprising as he lives somewhere in the neighborhood. But I'd never seen him before, and you always remember your first Ze sighting.

Sheryl professes not to care for The Show, but I love it. Perhaps even the hatas (sic my ass, mutha) out there will appreciate today's Scrabble episode.

34: Where the snark runs free

2006-11-26T21:47:00.000-05:00

Little Children was altogether unpleasant. I have a semi-unjustified bias against Tom Perrotta after reading the meh-inspiring Joe College (which Amazon helpfully subtitles as "A Novel"). Sheryl, however, read Little Children and was all excited about the film. So we had to see it. I have been trying to get Sheryl to blog about how poor it was as restitution, but she never got around to it. Thankfully, Ben has picked up the slack. To pile on another representative anecdote about how this was clearly not a movie, Jennifer Connelly was paid money to be in the film (presumably; I hope), and yet she's only in one of every dozen scenes or so. If that's not gross negligence in filmmaking, I don't know what is.

I probably shouldn't take the baton from Ben and get started with my thoughts on David Denby. Well, just one: for not particularly complicated but purposefully mysterious reasons, I've slept in the same bed as David Denby. (No, not at the same time. Several months later.) And the bed still smelled like an incompetent movie review. No joke.

19-2000

2006-11-26T17:55:00.000-05:00

Scotter (whom I miss more than I care to admit and who refuses to read 34, ever) was in from Seattle for a few days for the holiday. I met up with him at Penn Station last evening and we walked around the city for five hours before he had to head back to Long Island.

Constituting the least surprising event to have ever happened in Manhattan, we went directly to Nintendo World in Rockefeller Center. (I hate everyone who visits midtown Manhattan in the 34 day period between Thanksgiving and New Years. Please leave now, and don't come back next year. There are trees and lights where you are from.) Neither of us had played the Wii before, and after waiting in a brief queue we got our chances, albeit on separate consoles. Wii Sports was being demo'ed downstairs; we found out later that there was Zelda upstairs, with type of line that you'd expect for Zelda.

I played tennis and Scotter chose baseball. Using the Wii's remote really does put a smile on your face, and after quickly losing to the computer 2-0 I found myself wishing I could play some more. Not particularly wishing it enough to buy one for myself (not that I could, anyway, without getting up at 5:00am and hoping that they received a large shipment that day), but I have a feeling that if I had a chance to play Zelda instead of a few minutes of tennis I'd be sold.

Leaving Nintendo World, we headed to Korea Town, and ate at a place that was across the street from Pinkberry, which has been getting a lot of buzz in the New York food blogs. My main objective was to report back to Sheryl about the quality of the frozen yogurt. Unfortunately, it was just that: frozen, (fat-free!?!) plain yogurt. It tasted about as good as a cup on Dannon fresh from the freezer. Scotter was going to pass until he saw that one of the non-fruit toppings was Cap'n Crunch, which I think is a bad idea on a lot of things, including Pinkberry.

Cap'n Crunch as Christ (not the historical Christ, presumably) is something I can hang with. We passed that picture at the Andrew Kolb gallery on Park Avenue while walking down to the Union Square Barnes & Noble, and thank goodness Scotter noticed it. It hurts a little bit to know that I know longer have a monopoly on cereal art, but damn, someone buy me "The Last Breakfast" for Channukah.

We walked by both of the old ACTV offices, and reminisced about getting paid an awful lot of money to sit up late at night in front of a computer.

After bumming around Union Square for a bit we walked back up to Penn Station in time for Scotter's 11:02pm train. The drunken half of Long Island was out in full force, and amid a sea of brown bagged Buds and lip gloss, I bid him a good trip back to the West Coast.

I am starting a rumor, completely untrue, that he's planning on moving back to New York, so pass it on.

That would cut into my Warcraft time...

2006-11-26T14:37:00.000-05:00

To answer a question I've been asked a few times in the past weeks, no, I'm not going to read Against the Day Are you?

(Edit: Well, maybe I will, but I'm certainly going to wait until it comes out in paperback.)

CAPTCHAnomics

2006-11-25T09:59:00.000-05:00

My unhealthy relationship with CAPTCHAs is well-documented. (In addition to those, there is one more post that mentioned CAPTCHAs; the reason why Google's search engine performs so miserably on Google-owned Blogger posts is one of technology's great mysteries.) This article in the Guardian suggests that the spread of cheap computer and Internet to developing nations is going to lead (or already has led) to an explosion of CAPTCHA farms, in which spammers pay to have people fill them out.

Much like gold farming, I'm not really sure how I feel about that. It's hard to come down completely against something that puts money directly in the hands of those who really need it–the people who would agree to work in a CAPTCHA farm are likely to be the people for whom the marginal value of a dollar a day (or less, or more) is the highest. CAPTCHA farming is analogous to call centers, offshore or otherwise, in which people who value their time less than their employers value their own time are paid to sit and spam via the phone.

Not Affiliated with the North American Man-Boy Love Association

2006-11-16T23:56:00.000-05:00

Christ, I suck at NaBloPoMo. There's something about Brooklyn pizza that Katy asked me to post and I never got around to it. Does mentioning that count as blogging?

Across the sea

2006-11-12T21:24:00.000-05:00

Sheryl, my mom and I went to he Metropolitan Opera last night to see (and hear) Madama Butterfly. It was a lovely production, and forgive me if this was common knowledge, but did you know that there's a Weezer album called Pinkerton? And there's a character in Madama Butterfly named Pinkerton? And that that's intentional? That Rivers is a cultured fellow.

This Week in God: Cancelled

2006-11-05T12:32:00.000-05:00

Sheryl's been away in Mexico for the past week, and I've spent that time doing... pretty much nothing. I have managed to go from a two month backlog of Daily Shows/Colbert Reports on the TiVo to two week's worth, so maybe that's something to show for it.

In the interest of catching up I've been skipping through the interviews on both shows unless someone noteworthy was on. I stopped to watch Richard Dawkins on the Colbert Report talking about his new book, and it's worth watching if you didn't catch it live.

Ironic Discharge: +34 points

2006-11-04T16:20:00.000-05:00

I kind of want to play the game of 1000 Blank White Cards. If it catches on it would make a lot more sense than the poker craze–can you imagine watching ESPN34's The World Series of 1000 Blank White Cards and seeing someone lay the smack down with the ol' llama-eating penguin? It would be electric!

There are a few online repositories (say, this and this) of cards, but that obviously defeats the whole purpose. Some folks are also playing it on a bulletin board.

Smackdown roundup

2006-11-01T00:08:00.000-05:00

The current Senate race in Virginia is weird. It got just a smidgen weirder today when George Allen's staffers tackled and headlocked someone named Mike Stark.

Here's Stark's letter to the NBC affiliate that captured the incident on tape. Here's the Allen campaign's press release, which, as far as ridiculous press releases go, is pretty good.

I wonder if this news would have gotten some airtime if this John Kerry nonsense hadn't blown up. I think what that particular story tells us is that Kerry could learn a thing or two about reading a teleprompter from his doppelganger, a noted television personality.

A treat

2006-10-31T19:54:00.000-05:00

I love Calvin & Hobbes. The (unofficial) RSS feed of each day's strip from 11 years back is one of life's pleasures.

Informed speculation

2006-10-29T23:59:00.000-05:00

Is Stranger than Fiction going to be a good movie? I hope so. If nothing else, when Dustin Hoffman is on the screen I can pretend that I'm watching I (Heart) Huckabees for the eighth time. And they've got Spoon on the soundtrack!

Why Don't We Do It In Our Sleeves?

2006-10-27T09:07:00.000-04:00

No one will be watching us, after all.

El JagLeon

2006-10-27T00:46:00.000-04:00

Chimera or well-loved blogger? You decide.

I have a great new secret screenname now.

We heart pree fee

2006-10-25T11:22:00.000-04:00

Last night, we had one of the best meals we’ve ever had together at Chestnut, a little neighborhood restaurant on Smith Street. Chestnut is normally on the higher end, but for some glorious reason, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays they offer a $25 prix fixe menu. Any appetizer, any entrée, and any dessert. If you take a quick glance at the menu, that’s like at least $40 worth of food. And, as we soon found out, REALLY AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS food. I’m really still daydreaming about the tastes and textures sitting here at work the next day (so much so that I felt compelled to stop what I was doing to get it all into words).

The restaurant is small and cozy, with minimal art on the walls and light wood tables. Everyone, from the bartender to the waitstaff, is superfriendly and warm. We got a good vibe from the moment we walked in.

The cocktails:
Jeff started off with an Oktoberfest beer; I had a glass of Chardonnay. Soon, the waiter brought out a plate of house-made foccacia, oatmeal raisin bread, and pickles with a light, fruity olive oil. Everything tasted fresh and yummy, like it was made and served with warmth and care (are you reading, Franny’s?).

The apps:
Oh, the apps. Oh my, the apps. Jeff ordered the gnocci with mushrooms and some kind of porkish tasting product that we didn’t recognize on the menu. Each piece of gnocci was perfectly browned, and the plate was a collection of one delicious morsel after the next—earthy mushrooms, salty, chewy (insert pork product of your choice), perfectly al-dente gnocci…Jeff and I ate them piece by piece to savor each bite.

I ordered, on the waiter’s suggestion, the haystack shrimp with cilantro puree. I was presented with five plump shrimp wrapped in delicate layers of potato, then fried to the lightest crisp. The waiter told me it would look like shrimp covered in shredded wheat, and the man didn’t lie. The potato covering was amazingly light and crunchy, and gave way to a delicious, huge shrimp. The dipping sauce was good, too, but wasn’t even necessary.

The Entrée:
Jeff ordered pork wrapped in bacon with a corn and zucchini pudding. The pork was cooked to what seemed like just one notch up from rare, and was tender and rich. The bacon wrapped around was perfectly cooked. Not only did it add the perfect bacon zing to the porky wonderfulness, but also a crispy coat that made for textural fun. The corn and zucchini pudding—the two veggies whipped up with what I assume was a truckload of butter—tasted as good as it sounds.

I ordered the skate with wax beans, roasted cauliflower, and caper puree. Several months ago, Jeff, his mom, and I were walking down the Coney Island boardwalk and happened upon a man pulling the ugliest thing we had ever seen out of the water on his fishing line. I asked what it was, and (after seeming put out – he was so grumpy grumperson!) he told me it was a skate. Since then, we’ve all been curious about the taste of skate.
Well, skate is like no fish I’ve tasted before. It was very…fleshy, I guess? The fish was very soft and plush, almost. Jeff thought it had a slight fruity taste. It definitely didn’t taste fishy, but it didn’t really have a strong other flavor, like salmon and tuna do. It was fun to try, and the cauliflower served with it was roasted to the point where it almost tasted like candy – sweet, crunchy, mmm.

The Dessert:
It’s a bit ridiculous to close your eyes in a moment of reverence for food, but Chesnut’s budino made me not give a damn about anything else. I wouldn’t know because my eyes were closed, but I’m assuming Jeff’s reaction was the same.

We decided to splurge and order dessert wines, because that’s our latest “thing” – since Babbo, we’ve developed a small obsession with Muscato wines and other sweet Rieslings. We ordered one of each. Then, we selected the trio of house-made ice creams (pumpkin, oatmeal, and vanilla) with shortbread cookies, and the mysterious “budino.” “What is it?” we wondered. Who cares? We knew at that point it would be good. Chestnut had our trust.

The ice creams were classic and lovely, with their perfect buttery shortbread accompaniment. But the budino…good lord. It was shaped like a chocolate cake flan, sitting in a pool of caramel, served with a sharp cookie poking out. It tasted like soft, molten dark chocolate – very warm, with the texture of the softest brownie but a give like thick pudding. We regretted later that we hadn’t saved more of the ice cream to double dip our spoon into each at the same time. The rich, soft, warm chocolate with sweet, burnt caramel with the classic vanilla was divine.

Chestnut had us aglow all night. What a lovely meal and a lovely restaurant. For literally $20 more than Franny’s, we had a drawn out dining experience with tons of sublime food and four generous cocktails.

And we may be back soon. Sitting on Chestnut’s bar was a ginormous pumpkin. Tucked inside of our bill folder was a slip of paper asking us to guess its weight. The winner will receive a free dinner for two. Cross your fingers for the luck of the 34…we guessed 102, the closest multiple that seemed plausible (the pumpkin was really effing big). I’m guessing we’ll be back very soon, whether or not we win. Next Tuesday, anyone?

SpecWatch

2006-10-24T08:49:00.000-04:00

Matthew Continetti is blogging for the Times.

Instinctively, I know that this is a step up from blogging for Blogspot (although "blogging for Google" reads better), but I'm not sure why.

The review Chowhound doesn't want you to read!

2006-10-22T23:50:00.000-04:00

Sheryl and I had spent a lovely fall Saturday walking around Brooklyn yesterday–specifically, from Cobble Hill to Prospect Heights. (There are some accompanying pictures.)

After walking around Grand Army Plaza, we stopped in the Brooklyn Museum to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibit. It was arty, though I like my snapshots better.

We were both starved after the museum and I wanted to try Franny's, which was nearby on Flatbush Ave. The meal was... well, the details of the meal can be found in the below review. The important thing about this review is that I originally wrote it as a post on Chowhound, a genuinely useful foodie bulletin board. Within a few hours after posting the review it was removed from Chowhound, and I got an email from the site's moderators saying that reviews of Franny's were banned from the site due to previous "suspicious" posts. This ban has apparently been in effect since at least January of 2005, based on a comment I found in the archives (and which was subsequently removed by the moderators after I mentioned it). Now, it's their website and they can do whatever they'd like with posts (and they make it clear that they will), but preventing all discussion on a given restaurant for almost two years is pretty ridiculous. Fortunately, 34 gets some non-zero fraction of the traffic that Chowhound gets, so who needs them anyway? Here's my review:

I've been meaning to eat at Franny's in Prospect Heights for a few years now, ever since the owners had their column in the NY Times Dining In section. After hitting up the Brooklyn Museum today I did get around to stopping by with my girlfriend. It was, unfortunately, a disappointment.

We arrived at 5:45pm (we both had light lunches and were quite hungry) and expected to beat the dinner rush. Surprisingly the dining area was mostly full–a number of families were there with kids. There were a couple of four person tables open and one two person table, though. Instead of seating us at any of the open tables, the hostess told us there would be a five minute wait, so we sat down on some stools by the window. After a few minutes the hostess came by with drink menus, though we weren't interested in ordering at the bar, and after another couple of minutes she decided that the time was right for us to be seated at the open two person table.

I ordered a Six Points ale at the table and my girlfriend had a glass of a chilled red wine. We also ordered our meal: sardines and butter crostini, the cured meat plate, and a clam pizza.

The crostini and meat plate arrived within three minutes of ordering them, which was nice as we were starved and Franny's apparently doesn't offer any complimentary bread or other snacks. Unfortunately, the crostini consisted of one slice of bread cut in half with about four sardines on it. It was very tasty, but for a $9 order, bringing out a single slice of bread is an insult. We were in a similar situation with the meat plate: it was tasty, and if served with some bread might have actually been a substantial appetizer. But the meat plate was inexplicably meant to be consumed without accompaniment, and at $15 could not be described as worth it.

Then the clam pizza arrived. Again, it was tasty, but at $16 for what turned out to be an individually-sized serving, there should have been many more clams on it. To contrast, the clam pizza I had not too long ago at Otto was cheaper, loaded with clams (in the shell, which is fun), and in my opinion, tastier.

At this point we were both still hungry, but rather soured on the Franny's experience and not in the mood to give them any more money towards another pizza.

Based on the crowd, the prices and serving sizes don't appear to be doing much to hurt it's popularity, and I appreciate what the owners are trying to do with organic ingredients, but I personally can't imagine going back for another meal there.

I wonder what he makes for writing drivel

2006-10-15T19:29:00.000-04:00

The Ethicist (if that is his real profession) is a huge buffoon.

Computational Perversity in Chicago

2006-10-13T00:32:00.000-04:00

(Windows 95 was Chicago, but whatever.)

Because I don't know what to do when Sheryl isn't over and I have Warcrafted myself out for the night, I decided to install Windows Vista Preview Release 1 on my Intel iMac under the Parallels virtual machine. The preview release is free (legally) and Parallels has a 15 day demo (though I purchased a license), so you can go out and do this for free. After you've spent a grand and a half on your Intel Mac, that is.

The Parallels virtual machine is good, but it can't quite provide direct access to all the acceleration my graphics card offers in the guest operating system. Vista detects this and switches to some not-quite-so-Aero mode. Everything looks meh--not different from the Windows XP screen I sit in front of at work every day.

What is very impressive is the performance. You wouldn't think that a bloated operating system would be usuable in a virtual machine with a bunch of crap running in the native operating system, but I could definitely get things done. About the only thing I'm interested in, other than the novelty value, is using Picasa to manage my photos instead of the ass-slow iPhoto. Which, it's obviously not practical to boot into a virtualized operating system to get to your photos, but that's another matter.

Oh, and Vista brings with it an incredibly intrusive "feature": every time a program attempts to do just about anything on your machine (even change the date or time), a modal dialog box pops up and the rest of the screen blanks out until you grant or deny permission for the change. Who the hell came up with that as a solution to the malware problem?

Living musicians make live music

2006-09-30T11:41:00.000-04:00

The July 20th Ryan Adam's show that I've blogged about is now up on the Internet Archive. There's no reason for you not to go out and download the whole show and pretend your were with us in the middle of Jersey. The only annoyance is that you have to add in your own ID3 tags.

GOTCHA!

2006-09-27T01:01:00.000-04:00

I admit that I have a problem with CAPTCHAs, but apparently CAPTCHAs have a problem with me, too.

One of the inventors of CAPTCHA, Luis von Ahn, just won a MacArthur Genius blah-blah thingy. Which, c'mon, for something that incorrectly identifies me as a computer half the time?

On the bright side, George Saunders won as well. I don't know that half a million is going to motivate him to increase his literary output.

Linguini with Clam Sauce

2006-09-27T00:47:00.000-04:00

a dozen clams

an onion

much garlic

flat leaf (Italian) parsley

a box of linguini

some dry white wine

black pepper and some sort of grated hard cheese

Prep the clams and start the water for the pasta boiling.
Chop and sauteé the onions and garlic in olive oil in a large pan. Start cooking the pasta. Add the clams, a few pours of white wine, and the parsley to the pan with the onions. The clams should steam open after 5-7 minutes. If any clams don't open, please don't pry them open and eat them or you'll die.
When the pasta's done and strained, put it back in the pot you cooked it in. Add the contents of your clammy pan, the black pepper and cheese. Toss it around a bit and eat (the pasta).

Manhattan Clam Chowder

2006-09-27T00:36:00.000-04:00

18 medium size clams

3 stalks celery

1 onion

1 carrot

1 medium can crushed tomatoes

a few cloves garlic

(turkey) bacon

3 potatoes

bay leaf, tarragon, black pepper, salt and spicy red pepper

Prep the clams.
Heat some oil in a large soup pot. Chop the onion, garlic, carrot, and celery, and sauteé them in the pot for 10 minutes or so, stirring frequently. It should approach caramelization.
Add the diced potatoes and fill the pot with water about 3/4 of the way to the top. Add a judicious amount of the crushed tomatoes--not too much; you could always add more later. Let that boil for 15 minutes. Season with the herbs and spices.
Add the clams and continue to boil for another 10 minutes or so. The clams will open when they're fully cooked. If you're considerate, you'd take the clam meat out and discard the shells at this point.
Cook a few slices of (turkey) bacon, and add it to the soup just before you're ready to serve.
I'd recommend some bread and a bright Riesling. And candy for dessert if it's the weekend.

Clam.

2006-09-27T00:30:00.000-04:00

Out of all the things that should not be purchased, canned chopped clams are one of them. Don't buy them. Buy fresh clams, take them home, and put them in a big bowl of cold water. The clams will bubble a bit and generally enjoy themselves, and much of the sand that they house inside their shells will filter out to the bottom of the bowl.

So now you're got some prepped clams. Will you make a (Manhattan, natch) clam chowder, or linguini and clam sauce? It's choose your own adventure time, kiddies.

What's Your Power Song?

2006-09-10T11:24:00.000-04:00

I used to wonder if I would still feel the need to run all the time if I could eat ginormous tasting menus and effortlessly maintain a size 2 (in no danger of happening). And I used to think the answer was a definite "hell no"–I'd bring on the banana pudding and revel in my genetic luck. But over the past few years, I've come to crave running. Not the endorphins or anything silly like that, but the concept of setting myself in motion in time to the music blasting in my ears. I may look like I'm dying, but as these rivers of sweat pour down my face, in my head I'm onstage shaking my ass with Janet Jackson to "Miss You Much" or doing backup vocals for Michael Stipe.

And now, running is even more fun. This weekend, in addition to our divine tasting menu dinner at Babbo (perfection), Jeff gave me one of the best gifts I've ever received. Nike and Apple recently paired up to make their Nike + iPod kit. You need an iPod Nano (Jeff has one), a special pair of Nike shoes (we trekked to the Niketown in Midtown), and the kit, which has a sensor chip that fits snugly in the sole of the shoe and a receiver that plugs into the iPod. As soon as you plug it in, a special feature shows up on the Nano for you to customize your run. Do you want to run a certain distance? Do you want to run for an exact number of minutes? Do you want to burn a particular number of calories? You tell the iPod what you'd like to accomplish for that particular run and what playlist you'll listen to. The most fun pre-run part is choosing your "Power Song," the song that you'll cue up at the press of a button when you kind of just want to quit.

Then, you're off! You press the button to start your run, and a nice man or woman (you choose!) tells you your workout is beginning. Then, the same kind voice updates you throughout your run: You've run one mile! You're running at a 9 minute, 25 second per mile pace! The whole time you run, the screen displays your time, your per-mile pace, and your calories burned.

I can't explain how happy this makes me. I'm an obsessive time watcher. Yes, there are times when I get lost in the magic of a Damn Yankees song and don't even look at the time, but in general I like to know how long I've been running. And since I can't run on a treadmill, I roughly translate my completely unscientific "i guess i run a 10-minute mile" theory and then calculate the distance. Until yesterday, it's all been guesswork. But now, I just run. No clock-watching, just RUN. And it's AWESOME. I ran my typical Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens route yesterday, which hey, it turns out is 4.24 miles. I have my pace, I have my time. I had my Wilco Power Song, courtesy of Jeff.

Then you go home, plug the Nano into your computer and all your info is automatically entered into a spreadsheet of sorts on the Nike website. You can compare each run you make by distance, time, pace...you can of course race with yourself and track your progress (automatically! right when you plug in the iPod!), and you can also compare yourself with other users around the world.

Enough publicity for Nike...this just makes me so very happy. It's the perfect gift, and even so was only a small part of a perfect weekend.

Appetite for Destruction, or Moscato's Jello, Baby, or The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Food!

2006-09-10T11:22:00.000-04:00

When you view video on YouTube, there's a link below the video that will let you "Post a Video Response". The Beatles recorded Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band partly as a response to the musical innovations of the Beach Boy's Pet Sounds. And as evidenced by the countless publications dedicated to literary review, the most natural way to respond to writing is by putting words down on (sometimes digital) paper.

Sheryl and I ate at Babbo last night to celebrate our anniversary, and I wish I had the luxury of sharing my response to the food as an elaborate meal of my own. More to the point, I wish I had the skill to do so. Perhaps if I'd spent a protracted Junior year abroad (stretched out to, say, a couple of decades) traveling around Italy and watching regional chefs ply their trade I'd be able to approximate a third of what we ate last night. It was far and away the best meal I've ever had. Words cannot do it justice, (and if they could, it would be the many words the The Amateur Gourmet has written about Babbo, not my own) but this being a blog and all, I'd better get busy typing.

Having the foresight to plan this a month in advance, we were able to secure 9:30pm reservations. (Other folks we'd spoken to throughout the course of the month who'd been to Babbo had to settle for 10:30pm or even 11:00pm Saturday reservations; the restaurant was still three quarters full of people on entrees when we left.) We showed up a bit early to make the biggest decision of the evening: traditional tasting menu or the pasta tasting menu? The pasta tasting menu featured "envelopes" stuffed with beef cheeks served with an Italian cookie grated on top; Sheryl had been seriously jonesing for this after reading reviews. But the traditional tasting menu had better desserts, and both menus had pappardelle (which was the true deal-breaker for Sheryl), and we ended up going with the traditional menu–with the wine pairings, natch.

After checking in with the maître d'hôtel, we waited near (not at) the bar for twenty minutes or so–well, it was 24 minutes, because they went from "There's No Home For You Here" to "Ball And Biscuit" on the White Stripes' Elephant. The White Stripes were an auspicious beginning, and while Frank Bruni might question the ambience, we were all for it.

We were seated upstairs, and dispatched the waiter right away to bring us the first course of the tasting menu. Before that came out, we were given a wonderful chickpea bruschetta; I'd have a hard time dissecting each course into its constituent ingredients (and if I did this post would end up being twice as long), but the salient feature was the olive oil. We'd eaten at Otto previously, and the most impressive part of that meal was the olive oil and bread that they provided. Don't get me wrong, the Otto meal was great, but the olive oil was fruity and fragrant and monumentally better than butter with bread. (The olive oil gelato at Otto was similarly sublime; not to ruin the surprise, but it makes an appearance in our Babbo meal as well.) Mario's chefs use the same quality of olive oil at Babbo, and soaking it up the leftover vinaigrette from the chickpeas was wonderful.

The first course in the tasting menu was an eggplant parmesan paired with a rosé. We received detailed instruction about the history and flavor of each wine from the waiter, but don't ask me to remember what he said. The eggplant was a small medallion with perfectly taut skin and creamy flesh. It was topped with a light tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, and a touch of basil. Delicious.

The next two courses were pastas: the pappardelle (con Chardonnay), and duck tortelli with a strong red wine. The pappardelle was bathed in butter, stock, and thyme, and the chanterelle mushrooms provided a perfect earthy notes. Out of everything we ate, I could probably come closest to replicating the pappardelle, assuming I actually had the patience and skill to make my own fresh pasta. There wasn't an awful lot of duck in the tortelli (the filling was a duck-ricotta mix) and the accompanying sugo finto sauce was very bold, but god, it's hard to complain. There was Guns 'n' Roses in the background for the pasta course, much to Sheryl's delight.

The entrée was next, and to be honest, I had my doubts about grilled Guinea hen. I was picturing a quail, I guess–something dainty and full of bones, with bland white meat the reward for picking it clean. What came out was like no chicken I've ever had; the meat was dark, off the leg bone, and with skin grilled to a crisp. It was much closer to duck meat than chicken, but even the duck comparison does it a disservice. The hen was served on top of a corn and fregula mixture scented with black truffle vinaigrette. It ended up being the best part of the best meal, so it's perhaps the best thing I've ever eaten.

The final four courses were dessert-y. If I'm losing steam writing about them right now, it mirrors the way we felt last night–they were all delicious, but we were stuffed after the entrée, and the food and wine kept coming. We are gastro-troopers, though, and of course we continued on the best we could. (I had to finish some of Sheryl's wine, but she did admirably over all.) The cheese course was a sliver of rinded goat with fennel honey perfectly paired with a prosecco. Next came a gelatin made of moscato grapes, sitting in a bath of moscato wine, and paired with a different moscato wine. Moscato is a perfect dessert wine, and we were really happy at this point (and when Californication came on, followed by Antics, that was just perfect).

The cheese and gelatin were preludes to the actual desserts. First came a toasted hazelnut brioche with marscapone cream and an elderberry puree. It amounted to the most elaborate, delicious french toast I've ever had. The paired wine tasted like blueberries, which itself is impressive, but the last course's wine outdid it: it was a Chianti that was deliberately fermented in the sun, and it tasted like nutty caramel. The menu called for a chocolate polenta tart with vanilla gelato as the final dessert course, and that's what I got, but Sheryl was in for a surprise: they brought her a mini zucchini cake with the heavenly olive oil gelato! While zucchini cake and olive oil gelato might sound savory, it ended up being sweeter than the chocolate polenta (which was no slouch itself).

We ordered some coffee (chiefly because they serve it with rock candy swizzle sticks) and the waiter brought out a few petit fors to finish the meal. We had serious concerns about standing up at this point, but we made it out and back to Brooklyn safe and sound, and full of the best food imaginable.

Putting my $800 camera to good use

2006-08-29T21:03:00.000-04:00

If you don't subscribe to my Flickr feed you're really missing out.

Well, maybe, if it was in the Ethicist

2006-08-28T21:24:00.000-04:00

Is there any chance that I'd pass up on blogging about a Times sea cow article? No.

In other news, my season one DVD of Dr. Katz arrived. Unfortunately, UPS bent it like Zidane, in that the packaging appeared to be headbutted repeatedly. But then the replacement DVD arrived, and things were good. Now if I can just get Sheryl to stay awake through an entire episode...

I am to be pioneering, ja?

2006-08-27T00:35:00.000-04:00

Back in my day, cereal-related art was mad nascent. Now it's mad burgeoning.

Poooooooooooo

2006-08-18T22:40:00.000-04:00

I haven't done anything with the Scaffoldings site recently, but this might be worth going to Manhattan and photographing.

Why? Because I love you.

2006-08-18T22:37:00.000-04:00

Holiday Inn: Manhattan South

2006-08-15T00:42:00.000-04:00

I'm not the only one.