Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in r_wolfcastle's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
5:25 pm	Anal Retentives backwards-R Us I defrosted our larger freezer today, and re-arranged and cataloged everything in that freezer and in our two refrigerators' freezers. This started out as a way to make space for 40 lbs. of bison, elk, and ostrich that I just ordered, but it turned into an anal-retentive effort to finally keep track of what is in our freezers and where it all is. The list below is just what remains that I did not throw out due to damage/freezer burn, or decide we would eat very soon so I put it in the fridge and left it off this list. The list follows a description of the notation that I used when cataloging. Oh, and "Mystery" means exactly that -- a container without a label on it that needs to be defrosted when we have less food in the fridge to see what it is, and whether or not we'll keep it. Looking at this list, and knowing we have 40 lbs. more meat coming next week, I'm not sure we'll ever have to buy anything except fresh veggies, milk, soda, and booze ever again. And it once again makes me thankful for our Foodsaver vacuum packer; otherwise this would all spoil before we could get around to it. To head off an obvious question, the answer is: I love to cook, but there are only two of us. So the freezers are basically serving the same function for me as our oceans serve for our planet, only in my case it is excess food sequestration rather than excess carbon sequestration. Well, actually I guess it is carbon sequestration then, isn't it? To the left of the ">>" are the description and an indication of how much of that item there is: description[*#recipes](#pkgs [* #items_per_pkg | size_of_pkg]) To the right of the ">>" is the location of the item(s). The first letter indicates which freezer: (L)arge standalone freezer, (I)nside fridge, or (O)utside fridge. The remainder gives additional location information. The Large and Outside freezers each have storage space on their (D)oor; no 'D' means the item is not on the door. Shelves (both on the door and otherwise) are numbered 1-N starting with the top shelf. Finally, there may be additional qualifiers to further pinpoint the item's exact location on the given shelf/drawer: (B)ack, (F)ront, (L)eft, (R)ight. The Inside refrigerator's freezer has 3 slide-out drawers; two on the top and one on the bottom. These are denoted (L)eft top, (R)ight top, and (B)ottom. This is familiar stuff around here because it is nearly identical to the system we use to specify the location of individual wine bottles in our wine cabinets/racks. Examples: LD4 means Large freezer, on the door, 4th shelf from the top. L3B means Large freezer, not on the door, 3rd shelf from the top, in back. OF means Outside freezer, not on the door, in front. IL means Inside freezer, left top drawer. Avocado, smoked, avocado soup*2 (2) >> L4R Basil purée (8) >> IB Bison, rolled roast, raw (2) >> LD4 Bison, steak, NY strip, raw (1 * 2) >> L3F Bison, steak, ribeye, raw (MANY * 2) >> L3F Blueberries (1 * 0.5 cup) >> IR Blueberries (4 * 1 qt. bag) >> L2R Bottarga, mullet (1) >> L3B Breadcrumbs, dried, commercial (1 * 10 oz.) >> IR Breadcrumbs, fresh (1) >> IR Cheese, Cheddar, smoked (8 * 2 + 1 * 1) >> L4 Chipotle cubes (1 * 1 qt. bag) >> IR Chorizo, Léon, inferior (1) >> L3B Chorizo, Spanish, picante (2 * 2) >> L3B Coconut, unsweetened (1 * 1 qt. bag) >> IR Crawfish, boiled (1 * 3 lb.) >> OF Double Mustard Chicken (3) >> LD3 Duck breast halves, Moularde, raw (2 * 2) >> L3B Duck breast halves, Moularde, smoked (3) >> IB Duck fat, rendered (1 * 1 qt.) >> L4 Duck fat, rendered, commercial (2 * 1.75 lb.) >> OF Duck legs, Moularde, raw (1 * 4) >> L3B Garbanzo broth (2 * 2 qt.) >> L4 Green Garlic pesto (1) >> L2R Green Garlic purée (1 * 2 cups) >> L2R Grits, yellow, coarse, Anson Mills, raw (1 * 6 qt.) >> L1L Guacamole (2) >> L4R Guanciale, commercial (1) >> L3B Guanciale, commercial, refrozen (0.5) >> L3B Ham, for soup, raw (2) >> L3B Ham, steak, Farmer John's Maple (3 * 6 oz.) >> IB Ham, steak, Farmer John's Original (7 * 6 oz.) >> IB Hummus, South Beach (2) >> L2R Hummus, fake, Ornish (1 * 2 qt.) >> OB Kielbasa (1) >> L3B Lamb, leg, roasted (1) >> LD1 Lamb, leg, roasted, Greek-spiced (1) >> LD1 Lox, smoked (8) >> IB Meyer lemon cubes (4 * 1 qt. bag) >> IL Mushroom duxelle (1) >> L2R Mystery #1 (1 * 4 qt. container) >> OB Mystery #2 (1 * 4 qt. container) >> OB Octopus, baby, raw (1) >> L3B Pancetta, sliced (2 * ~0.5 lbs.) >> L2R Parmigiano-Reggiano rind (3) >> IB Peas, green, raw (1) >> IR Peppers, New Mexico, roasted (5 * 1 lb.) >> IB Peppers, Thai, red, raw (11) >> IB Peppers, jalapeño, red, raw (7) >> IB Peppers, jalapeño, red, roasted (8) >> IB Peppers, jalapeño, smoked (4) >> IB Pesto, basil, Hazan*2 (1) >> L3B Porcini powder (1 * 1 lb.) >> IR Pork, butt, smoked (1 * HUGE) >> LD2 Pork, chops, smoked (1) >> LD2 Pork, roast, herbed (0.5) >> LD4 Pork, salt (1) >> IB Posole verde (1 * 3 qt.) >> OB Rabbit, raw (1 * 2) >> L3F Salmon, cured (5) >> IB Salmon, hot-smoked (9) >> IL Seeds, SproutPeople, Italian mix (1) >> IR Seeds, SproutPeople, Russian mix (1) >> IR Seeds, SproutPeople, hot mix (1) >> IR Seeds, SproutPeople, onion (1) >> IR Seeds, SproutPeople, sunflower (1) >> IR Shrimp, headless, 10/15s, raw (1 * 5 lb.) >> OF Shrimp, headless, 15/20s, raw (1 * 5 lb.) >> OF Shrimp, smoked, avocado soup*2 (2) >> L4R Soup, hambone (1) >> L4 Tomato Confit (1) >> L3B Tomato sauce, Batali Basic (1 * 2 qt.) >> OB Tomatoes, slow-roasted (1) >> OB Truffle butter (1) >> IR Turkey breast, smoked (2 * ~1.5 lbs.) >> IR Yeast, Red Star packet (3) >> IB Current Mood: Hurty but happy (Comment on this)
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009
1:50 pm	SciFi Continuity FAIL As some of you may know, I possess the curse of a nearly-unconscious eye/ear for continuity. I will be enjoying a movie, a story, a play, and suddenly I will see/hear something that has the mental effect of being slapped in the face with a fish a la Monty Python. It leaps out at me unbidden in most cases; it isn't as if I'm looking for it. It might be something as simple as a wound on the right forehead that in the next scene is on the left. Or as subtle as a plot assumption that obviously makes no sense. Today I have experienced both in full measure, and it is only early afternoon. I was reading an otherwise excellent SF short story early this morning when I got hit. On page N a boy asks to see a traveling medicine man's chickens, nothing that he (the boy) has never seen a chicken. On page N+2, the same boy says that Ella in his village has a chicken and he (the boy) often plays with it. The boy is not mentally impaired; the writer was mentally impaired. A few pages later, the medicine man finishes all the food on his plate, and carefully wipes it clean with his tortilla. A paragraph or two later, he offers the boy the rest of the meat and beans from his plate. Now we're watching Star Trek II, The Overacting Battle Between Kirk and Khan as meaningless background noise. After Kirk's insane regulation-breaking recklessness allows Khan to wound the Enterprise, Kirk & Co eventually end up on the science station. They find Checkov and his captain. Checkov begins to explain about Khan, and says Khan blames Kirk for Khan's wife's death. Kirk cuts him off, snapping, "I know what he blames me for!" Well, no, dumbass scriptwriter, Kirk doesn't know what Khan blames him for, because Checkov hasn't even mentioned that Khan's wife died, much less explained how it happened or why Khan blames Kirk. Kirk doesn't know any of that, and there's no way in hell he can know that Khan blames him for his wife's death, or why. Some script hack decided since the audience already knew all that, they'd cut things short, and we wouldn't notice. Well, some of us notice even if we're trying not to, and IT SUCKS. I hate it when something like this happens, because it breaks the fourth wall for me. And quite often it breaks the fourth wall when I am otherwise very much enjoying the experience. And I cannot turn this "ability" (curse) off no matter how hard I try or how many substances I ingest. It is the mental, moral equivalent of a loud obnoxious cell phone going off in a theater for me, and I do not appreciate it. I'm no wizard. I often miss gaping plot holes. Or, more often, I notice a gaping plot hole but just shrug it off because it's just entertainment. But for some reason continuity errors affect me very differently. I've often thought about being part of the solution by hiring out as a proofreader. The two problems with that are (a) there are many people more qualified than I who probably need the work a lot more than I do, and (b) I have one primary disqualification, that being that I am a very slow reader. I know audiences today are more sophisticated and demanding. I know it is more difficult with today's often fragmented shooting order to get things right. In the film industry, the "cigarette girl" has given way to the "continuity director" (when they bother at all). If you're going to spend tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to produce and market a movie, you can at least spend a few bucks on continuity. Likewise, if you care about a story enough to write it as a short story or novel, you should care enough to give a copy to a friendly continuity boffin or qualified editor (if the latter even have jobs any more) for a once-over prior to submission for actual publication. Please. I promise you that we involuntary continuity freaks will thank you profusely. Current Mood: disrupted (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, November 14th, 2009
10:59 pm	Charity, Golf, and Wine in the O.C. My buddy Rob and I took his plane down to the O.C. for a charity golf tournament in support of the excellent Angel Flight West. It was not our first year playing the tournament, but it was the first year that it was held at the stunning Pelican Hill just south of Newport Beach. Yes, it really is that beautiful, with ocean views from above on nearly every hole. The flight down was largely uneventful. Landing got a bit tricky, though. We were on final approach following a Southwest 737, intending to stay above them and land beyond where they landed to avoid their dangerous wake. But at the last minute, they claimed they had a wind shear indicator (hard to believe, as it was dead calm), and they went around again. Rob quickly asked the tower for permission to land on the other parallel runway, then he approached it from an oblique angle to avoid any wake turbulence, and was completely successful in doing so. We stayed with Rob's wife's cousin Michelle in Laguna Niguel. The day before I had braised some celery, and brought that and some flatiron steaks down with us, along with 6 bottles of wine. We stopped in a nearby supermarket for baking potatoes and sourdough, and I proceeded to make dinner for us as partial thanks to Michelle for her hospitality. We stayed up late talking with her and drinking wine. Thursday we drove up to Newport Coast to play the tournament. We had fun even though neither Rob nor I brought our A game that day. The dinner afterward was simple but elegant and delicious. Afterwards, we drove to Rob's sister's house, but she was out of town. So we walked to the ferry and took it across to Balboa Island, where I got a mini-tour of Rob's misspent youth (his family vacationed there every year), saw where he met his wife, etc. We found a bar with a couple of pool tables, and played pool with some nice guys from New Zealand who worked for Qantas, and the total jerk from Panasonic who had taken them out for the evening. We stayed there a long time, and didn't get back to Michelle's until around midnight. Friday we got up early and drove 90 minutes towards Palm Springs to play golf at one of our favorite courses, Oak Valley in Beaumont. We got rained on a bit, but otherwise had a very good time. The course was tough because it was being set up for the second stage of Q school next week. It was great to play a course like that for only $55 each including cart and range balls. When we got back to the house around 5pm, Michelle's brother Mark had arrived for a visit. He's a big fun guy; he was quarterback for Army at West Point. We shared a bottle of wine, then Michelle drove us to the wine store where she works doing tasting events as a hobby/sideline. The tasting was quite successful and packed, and I also got to meet Rob's wife's sister. After the tasting was over Michelle and the store manager opened another couple of bottles for us to try, and we ended up there until after 10:30. When we got back to the house the four of us did a side-by-side tasting of 2 Ridge Syrahs I had brought, then Michelle and Rob both crashed. Mark and I stayed up drinking and talking, and before we were done he also inflicted a large glass of Scotch on me. I don't even know what time I finally bailed on him to get a couple of hours sleep; all I know is that I was really hurting this morning. The wife suggested about an hour ago that she and I drink some wine, and I said, "NO!!" I think I can go quite a long time without wine after last night's debauchery. The flight back was uneventful and slow with a 30 knot headwind. It took us nearly 2.5 hours; Rob said the longest it had ever taken him before was 2 hours and 15 minutes. I took a 2-hour nap but still don't feel quite human yet. Current Mood: tired but happy (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 24th, 2009
12:09 pm	Typical trip into San Francisco Options last night: Drive 25 minutes in heavy traffic to the nearest Caltrain station that might have parking, take a non-express train for an hour, then either take 2 different muni lines or a long cab ride at Friday rush hour. Drive way up to Colma or Millbrae, take BART, then take a cab ride to the restaurant. Drive all the way into the city (w/the whole rush hour thing), and try to find street parking because there are no garages anywhere near our destination. We're usually BART mavens if it makes any remote sense, but we decided to go with option 3. We left the house at 5:30. The car nav said we would arrive at 6:20. Our dinner reservation was for 7:15. 280 came to a standstill right at 380, but I was able to cut over to 101 and avoid all that. Then I stupidly followed the car nav back onto 280 near the city, when I should have stayed on 101. This meant we had to wind our way crosstown and cross Market during rush hour. We eventually made it to our destination with half an hour to spare but, as fully expected, there was no parking. The restaurant has valet service, but they would close before we were done with the movie premiere after dinner. A block up we saw a Parking sign pointing left, so we went that way. Just as we were about to pull into a small surface lot, an SUV pulled out of a space immediately adjacent, so I hopped in there. As usual, the glass on the meter was clouded/fogged up so much that I couldn't read the applicable hours and time limit. As usual, the wife had no flashlight in her car, but I used my cell phone screen and managed to figure out that the meter was only in force until Xpm, where X was either 5, 6, or 8. Since it was after 6, we were covered regardless if we put 2 hours on the meter. I put in a quarter, and the meter read 8 minutes. Hmmmm. This is going to take a lot of quarters. I rapidly fed in 3 more quarters, thus taking the meter to 15 minutes, 15 minutes, and 15 minutes, respectively. Oh, shit. The meter has a 15-minute limit. Instantly it dropped to 14 minutes. Goddamnit! Got back in the car, pulled it into the self-service surface lot. Which turned out to be full, so I called the wife back over to get back in the car, and off we went to continue our search. Some number of blocks and hills later, finally found a space on a hillside on the west edge of Alta Plaza Park. There's a sign up ahead about a 2-hour limit, but it is obscured so we can't read the applicable hours. I went ahead and parallel-parked, then hopped out to read the sign. We're OK. Wife exits the car, and we start down the hill to Fillmore. We get about a block away, and she says, "Did you lock the car?" "No, you were the last one out." So I trudge back up the hill and lock the car. Now we're 2 blocks or so down the hill, and I say, "Do you have the confirm for the movie tickets?" She stops with this stricken look on her face, since that was her responsibility. I say, "I need the exercise anyway, I'll meet you at the corner with Fillmore." And back up the long hill I go again. By the time we rendezvous at Fillmore, then walk another 3 blocks down Fillmore to the restaurant, we arrive at the maitre d' desk at precisely 7:15pm to honor our reservation. Elite Cafe has great California-influenced New Orleans cuisine, BTW. The wife's hominy-encrusted catfish was out of this world. After the movie premiere, we shot home in about 50 minutes door-to-door. Current Mood: happy (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
5:56 pm	My mind is officially blown I just found out that my paternal grandfather and namesake (and possibly also his chosen business successor, my uncle F) were killed by the Klan/segregationists. The evidence is circumstantial, but it is quite strong. Furthermore, it makes sense of a whole lot of things that confused me as a young child -- actions, cryptic statements, strong emotions that adult relatives attempted (and failed) to hide from us children. I'm about 3/4 of the way through the CD that my Uncle B recorded a few years back detailing the evidence and his suspicions. I'm going to finish listening to it shortly, then perhaps post something more informative on the matter. I just had to "tell" someone. I was always told that my grandfather died of a massive heart attack at age 52, having never exhibited any heart problems prior. Apparently that wasn't true... Current Mood: dumbfounded (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
11:52 am	Why I Hate Democracy I just returned from getting a flu shot at my local CVS pharmacy. Ahead of me in line was a middle-aged man, his 19-year-old daughter (whom I'll charitably call Idiot henceforth to distinguish her from the healthcare worker), and her infant son. When she sat down to get her shot, she threw a fit because the healthcare worker administering the shots was drawing flu vaccine (using a fresh needle, of course) from the same vial from which she drew the dose for the previous patient. Idiot's father was embarrassed, but not nearly as much as he should have been, which is probably part and parcel of why she grew up to be an Idiot. Both he and the healthcare worker patiently explained to her that since a new needle was used each time, there was no co-mingling involved. Her father said, "It's not like you're sharing needles." Idiot still objected, saying "I just have this thing about sharing anything like that." The healthcare worker even noted that, unlike other clinics, she puts on a fresh pair of gloves for each and every patient. And here I am looking at this woman. Looking at her tattoos. Looking at her pierced cheeks (ditto). And listening to her father note that she'll take a sip out of just about anyone's soda, and hearing her say, "Well, yeah, but that's different." So she'll take the risks associated with tattoos and piercings, and casually risk Hep C, but not "risk" brand new sterile needles in a shared vial of vaccine. And I'm looking at her little son, very likely evidence of yet more unplanned bodily fluid sharing. She eventually relented, mostly because she was happy that the healthcare worker used fresh gloves for each patient, and distracted by the thought that other clinics don't normally do so ("that's gross!!"). What does this have to do with democracy? Well, in a democracy, nominally Idiot has the same political power that I do. And she has reproduced; she'll be passing on her ignorance to the little future voter smiling and gurgling at me from his seat in a shopping cart. There is something inherently wrong with a system that gives the Idiots of the world the same political power as us simple Normals. Yes, I know the situation is not nearly so cut-and-dried. We live in a corrupt representative democracy that is driven by money. But in order to reap the lucrative financial benefits of that corrupt system, a representative must first be elected. And that is where the Idiots of the world re-enter the picture. The franchise should be a privilege to be earned, not a birthright whose loss requires the commission of a felony. Current Mood: aghast (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
9:35 am	Birthday musings 45 years ago I was 3 years old, and riding my 120-lb. German Shepherd around the yard like a horse. I would have to wait another year before I was allowed to go to the large lake in front of our house unaccompanied, 2 years before I got my first rifle, and 3 years before I received any ammunition for said rifle. 39 years ago I had just moved to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and I was miserable. I had come from a quiet protective academic college town and had been thrown into a barbaric 5th-grade mix of illiterate fighting cursing offspring of fishermen, factory workers, etc. I was in shock, especially since I was 2-3 years younger than all of my classmates. I had by this time, however, discerned that marbles was the status-defining game of the playground, and although I had never played the game before, within a month I would earn my niche as the undisputed marbles champion of the school. I was taught to be adaptive. 34 years ago I was living on a 10-acre farm, helping my father build boats and fish for mullet with a 1200-foot gill net on the weekends, and enjoying the 10th grade -- my first year in the local high school where my mother taught. It would be a year yet before I got my driver's license on my 15th birthday, then lied about my age to get my first non-farm job at McDonald's. 30 years ago I was in my 2nd semester of college and madly in love with the woman who ended my virginity. I was also becoming quite ill and would soon end up in the campus hospital with an IV in each arm due to ulcerative colitis, an after-effect of my radical stomach reconstruction a year earlier to cut out what the doctors at the time assumed was very advanced stomach cancer. I would shortly drop out of school for the semester as a result. 25 years ago I was working at my first post-collegiate job in North Carolina, and had just moved in with the closet cocaine addict who would continue to all but destroy my life, financially and psychologically, over the next 18 months. At the time, though, life was good. Work was all-consuming in a good way, my colleagues and I were an astoundingly good and close-knit team, and I was thoroughly enjoying all aspects of my early 20s. Naiveté has its short-term benefits... 20 years ago I was in California (via New Jersey). My now-wife had moved out to join me, thus making me deliriously happy, I had been tapped to be Adobe's national and international standards rep, with all the executive exposure and delicious global travel that entailed, and was on top of the world. Little did I know that a mere 10 days later, instead of bowling with my usual league in the lane adjacent to Steve Wozniak and his mother, I would be riding 3-foot-high waves in the floor, watching an enormous computer monitor bounce across my desk, and rescuing a terrified and injured friend from an earthquake-darkened women's restroom. 15 years ago I was [finally] married, living in the house we still occupy today, working for a control freak that I both loathed and disrespected, but also getting to travel to Japan, and I loved Japan so much that it was almost worth it. My wife had emerged from a deep deep funk and was very belatedly starting what would turn out to be a more stellar career by far than anything I would ever accomplish. It has been my honor and privilege to observe at close range. 10 years ago I had turned down a promised directorship at Adobe to pursue Internet dreams at AvantGo. I had been there for 6 months, was still not used to working with children and watching them ignore my sage elderly advice and repeatedly make mistakes I had made and learned from years ago, and my boss (one of the 4 founders) and I were unsuccessfully lobbying for the company to go public now Now NOW! Instead they would screw around with bankers, go from 90 employees to 360 employees in only 9 months, build a big expensive headquarters building in Hayward, spend a year searching for a rock-star CEO to take us public, and end up going public so late that by the time we employees could exercise our options, they were worthless. Hard enough to learn from your own mistakes; much more painful to be the victim of someone else's mistakes and be powerless to do anything except watch the train wreck unfold. 5 years ago, on my 43rd birthday, I was standing for the first time on the battlements of Heidelberg Castle where my mother had stood in 1961 when she was 8 months pregnant with me. My wife and I had both lost our jobs 3 months earlier, and we were winding up a much-needed 6-week swing through Ireland, Spain, Italy, Greece, and Germany. In 2 weeks we would pick up our 2 goofy 8-week-old yellow Lab siblings and begin mercilessly lavishing our displaced parental love on them. Tomorrow I embark on my quest to lose at least 80 (preferably 100) lbs., finally start the kitchen remodel I've been talking about for 10 years, acquire a rudimentary but functional knowledge of the Spanish language, and perhaps finally do some creative writing. I expect significant bumps along the road, beginning with the spinal injection I will be subjected to on Monday. Life continues unabated. And I'm OK with that. It still beats the hell out of the alternative. Current Mood: ambivalent (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
5:44 pm	I need a drink My day so far: Awake at 6am so I can meet wife at car dealership at 7am to give her a ride. Dealership takes 25 minutes to get to her and check her in, despite the fact that she has an appointment. Take her home. 8:30am: Dealership calls, says all 4 tires need replacing (given mileage, not a huge surprise). Tell them not to do so, order tires from CostCo ($600), drive back to Sunnyvale to pick up car. Work all morning de-cluttering house so maids can do big one-time cleaning tomorrow. This is made especially difficult because (a) my back is in shreds, and (b) my back is literally covered with athletic tape to remind me not to make motions that hurt my back. 2pm: Sister-in-law arrives with her first Mac still in the box, her 3G router still in the box, and I have her backup drive I ordered for her. There ensues 3 hours of fighting Apple (very minor), Microsoft (somewhat major and ultimately unsuccessful), and Verizon (horrendous, and only partly successful). 5pm: As she leaves, I pick up the mail, only to find the IRS completely ignored my meticulous response to their May finding of error in our 2007 tax return, completely ignored the attached amended return, and claims that we owe $107,000 in back taxes and penalties (actually, they owe *us* a couple of thousand $$$), and we'd damned well better pay by September 9. I start searching for a tax attorney. 5:15pm: Time for the tape to come off, which jobs goes to my saintly wife. Physical therapist who applied it was adamant that it not be ripped off, because it will literally take skin off with it. It has to be taken off very very slowly. Off my somewhat hairy middle back and my very hairy lower back. Very very slowly. I get through it by rolling up a towel and biting down on it as hard as I can. It takes quite a while. It is now 5:45pm. There is still a ton of work to be done to render any number of flat surfaces cleanable by the maid tomorrow, and I could care less. I've had it for today. It is officially beer-thirty. Or maybe wine-o'clock; I'll decide as soon as I'm done posting this. Current Mood: angry (Comment on this)
Friday, June 5th, 2009
10:00 am	Today's History Lesson In October of 1996, Rupert Murdoch launched Fox News with the honest intent of countering the biased liberal media Clinton worship with a truly fair and balanced news source. Following his re-election in 1996, which he privately thought of as a historic mandate, Bill Clinton secretly ordered the implementation of the populace pacification plan whose development he had set in motion shortly after first gaining the office in 1992. Under this plan, public rancor would be muted and harmony ensured by the injection of an early version (G-6) of Paxilon Hydrochlorate gas into the air conditioning systems of shopping malls, office buildings, factories, churches, sports arenas and, most importantly, radio and television studios. Within weeks, liberals throughout the nation were rendered smug and complacent yet erratic. In a word, ineffectual. But the effect on some conservatives was quite different. Due to unforeseen interactions between the "Pax" gas and in-tissue residues from tractor pull and NASCAR hydrocarbons, cigar smoke, heavy metals from Bible book covers, and a nearly all-meat diet, many conservatives experienced a severe drop in IQ and a concomitant ratcheting up of their natural meanness. But it was at the Fox News studios that the true tragedy occurred. An overzealous young Fox News intern (and undercover Democratic operative) named Sholom Golding was tasked with activating the secretly-installed Pax injection equipment at the studio. Ms. Golding, however, had that very morning been the victim of yet another ass grab and sloppy clearly-unwanted kiss from Bill O'Reilly, and felt that the mandated Pax levels would be far too meager to put even a dent in his narcissistic psychosis. So Ms. Golding, still smelling Mr. O'Reilly's fetid saliva on her upper lip, increased the Pax injection level by a factor of 10 before engaging the equipment. Also in the Fox News studios that week, freelancing after her first firing from MSNBC, was a fledgling legal correspondent by the name of Ann Hart Coulter. The results speak for themselves. I reveal this information in the admittedly vain hope that those who continually vilify Fox News pundits will realize that those poor souls are the victim of a Democratic medical experiment gone horribly wrong. By way of illustration, I offer this never-before-seen photo of Ann Coulter going into makeup. P.S.: Rush Limbaugh was not, to my knowledge, ever exposed to any appreciable amount of Pax. He is just a dick. Current Mood: whimsical (Comment on this)
Monday, May 11th, 2009
10:30 am	On the bastardization of established nomenclature Last night we went to see the IMAX version of the new Star Trek movie. We drove all the way across town, paid 50% more, went into a fucking shopping mall and, worst of all, went to an advertising-ridden much-reviled AMC theater, something I normally avoid like the swine flu. All for the sake of the IMAX experience. What we got was a screen that was smaller than a normal full-sized (i.e., non-20-plex) movie screen, and a film that was not shot with IMAX cameras. IMAX has an established meaning and therefore an established set of expectations, I paid my money based on those expectations, and I got something completely different (in a bad way), because someone changed the meaning of the well-known term "IMAX". Restaurants around here are suddenly all serving Kobe beef. Although their prices are insane ($109 for a steak, anyone?) they are, believe it or not, not nearly insane enough for the meat to really be Kobe beef. Nor is there enough Kobe beef produced to allow all these places to serve Kobe beef. So what gives? If you press them, they'll admit it is "American Kobe". What is "American Kobe"? It is beef from a completely different breed of cattle than that used for real Kobe beef, raised in a completely inferior way, fed cheap grain and even grass (Kobe cattle are fed only very expensive grains), and slaughtered in a typical factory manner that (ethical issues aside) has an adverse effect on the quality of the meat. In short, it is not remotely like Kobe beef. But is it being sold often simply as "Kobe". A bagel is a round bread with a hole in it that is unique in several ways, the most pronounced of which is that the dough is boiled, then baked. This is what gives a bagel its unique texture, crumb, and chewy crust. But it requires extra labor. So for that reason, there have long been outfits that make so-called "steam bagels". Instead of boiling the dough, then baking it, they just bake it in a steam injection oven. But they don't call them "steam bagels", they just call them bagels. From its very inception, this is what Noah's New York (HAH!!!) Bagels did. But after Noah's was bought up in 1996, along with 3 other regional chains, they stopped even bothering with the steam ovens. If you watch their "About Noah's" slideshow, they even admit that they just spritz some water on the [unboiled] bagels before putting them in the oven, and claim that this "spritz of water" ensures a real bagel crust. Just like Safeway et al., all these bagels chains are just baking simple bread and calling them bagels. All this has several implications, all of them not good: When I order a bagel or go to see something in IMAX, I don't know if I'll get the real thing or some cheap far-inferior product. Because every one of these bastardizations is cost-driven, the cheap knockoff quickly and efficiently overwhelms the real item. Soon one has to go far out of one's way to obtain the original superior item. Once the marketing juggernauts have reset the lower inferior expectations, even more pressure is put on the original item. For example, a real bagel is a terrible thing to use as sandwich bread. The crust is too chewy so sandwich fillings squeeze right out onto the floor, and the crumb is so dense that you can't taste anything but the bagel. I can already hear people complaining that they bought bagels to make sandwiches, but they got this dense chewy thing that wasn't anything like the light fluffy bland horror that they think is a real bagel. And so I despair. For the record, I do not feel the same way about regional monikers, such as the European PDOs, such as Champagne, Cheddar, etc., for the simple reason that those labels usually do not tell me much that is useful to me as a consumer. "Champagne" tells me that I'm getting a sparkling wine produced using methode champagnoise with a certain minimum time in the bottle. All of which can be said of any high-quality sparkling wine made anywhere. Similarly, an official "Cheddar" cheese is one made from local ingredients in any of 4 large English counties, and that's pretty much all that is guaranteed. You can feed your cattle Reese's Pieces and cardboard and use the milk to make Cheddar[tm] as long as your cattle reside in Somerset or Dorset. Current Mood: frustrated (2 Comments |Comment on this)
9:43 am	What I learned from Star Trek 2009 Last night we went to a local "IMAX" theater to see the new Star Trek movie. This is a tiny subset of what I learned from my experience. But first a frosted mini-rant: I didn't think AMC Theaters could get any worse. I was wrong. Their "IMAX", which is marketed as simply "IMAX", is actually "IMAX Digital", which does not use IMAX cameras (it is a projection standard only), uses a tiny screen compared to real IMAX, and is in every way nothing like real IMAX. The picture is crisp and clear, but that is due to Texas Instruments DLP technology, and is in no way IMAX-related. AMC's "IMAX" is to real IMAX what a Safeway bagel is to a real bagel. And now to our feature attraction: In the future, the Grand Canyon is in Iowa. (BTW, the Corvette incident is what happens when the harshest punishment for a child is a "time out".) In the future the most smoking hot babes still go for the emotionally unavailable guys who bottle up their feelings. At least until somebody talks smack about they mama, or the bitch forgets to use fabric softener on his uniform again. Everything Stephen Hawking ever told us about black holes is wrong. Everything. Those fine Orion girls are just like crack; once you go green, you never go back. A ship whose total usable internal area is a sphere roughly 3km in diameter can carry a blocky 3-meter-diameter "drill" that is at least 250km long. On a planet where a new way to make no-knead bread makes headlines for weeks, the response to discovering that human time travel is an accomplished reality? A single brief moment of mild surprise. Free-falling from space into atmosphere at hundreds of miles per hour wearing only a jumpsuit does not, as expected, rip one's head from one's body. A parachute 1/4 the area of a normal skydiver's parachute can not only slow a spacediver by hundreds of mph instantaneously, but in doing so it does not, as expected, rip his legs right off his body. A typical modern fighter jet has about 40 computers in it just to keep it in the air; it literally cannot be flown by a human without a hefty subset of them. But by the mid-23rd century, man has advanced so far that he can pop out of many-times-lightspeed warp into orbit around a moving planet by just saying, "...4...3...2..." and hitting a button at the right moment. Roger Ebert hopes: Perhaps the next one will engage these characters in a more challenging and devious story, one more about testing their personalities than re-establishing them. Don't hold your breath, Roger. Current Mood: whatever (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009
6:49 pm	The Power of Newfies Today at lunch an older gentleman asked if he could pet my dogs. As he petted them with obvious relish, he told me that he had recently lost his Newfie (Newfoundland), and was thinking about getting a shorter-haired dog like a Lab. I've always had a soft spot for Newfies. They have that innate confidence that only the largest dogs possess, and that already renders them less insecure and therefore less aggressive. And Newfies are even more secure and loving than most other large breeds. I always remember a road trip through Seattle area and meeting Liralen's black Newfie as a puppy. The guy asked me how they were around horses. I told him that they thought horses were just big dogs they could play with, which led to problems when the horse didn't agree. But I also noted that when they were pups we took them to my sister's, Tank squeezed through the gate and tried to play with her horses, damned near got stomped to death when the horses spooked, but the instant we put the dogs in the fenced-in backyard the horses came right up to the fence, nuzzled the dogs, and followed the dogs around the whole day on the other side of the fence. He smiled approvingly. His Newfie and his horse, he said, were instant companions the moment he brought the dog home. They were inseparable. But that also meant that the dog was in the pasture with the cows and, more importantly, the bulls, and the bulls were none too pleased. But the dog ignored the bulls other than to avoid them when they got pissed, soon the bulls stopped taking notice, and one day he saw the dog go quietly up to the dominant bull and kiss the bull on the nose. After that all resided together in peace in the pasture. Nice guy, nice story. Made me smile. Current Mood: emotional (Comment on this)
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
7:20 pm	Chickpea Oven Fries Based on a Mark Bittman article in NYTimes, plus subsequent comments/modifications from readers, I made this today. I chose to "oven-fry" them for dietary reasons, winged it, and they turned out great. Here's what I did: Chickpea (Garbanzo) Oven Fries 1 1/4 cups chickpea flour 2 1/2 cups chicken broth 1 cup (or more, up to 1 1/2 cups) thinly sliced shallots 2 T olive oil, plus more for brushing tops 1 t salt 1 T freshly ground black pepper, plus more for tops 1/2 t ground cumin (or more, to taste) 1/2 t cayenne (more or less, to taste) other spices/herbs as desired Grease the bottom and halfway up the sides of an 8x8 baking dish. In a bowl, whisk together chickpea flour and broth until smooth. Stir in remaining ingredients. Place in a saucepan over medium-high heat and cook until nicely thickened, but not dry. Once it gets hot, this will happen quite quickly; 5 minutes at the very most. Turn the contents of the saucepan out into the 8x8 baking dish, and smooth it out. Cool to room temperature, then cover with plastic wrap or foil and place in the refrigerator to set up for at least an hour, or overnight. When ready to cook, preheat oven to 200C/400F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or Silpat. Cut contents of 8x8 baking dish, which should be between 1/2” and 3/4” thick, into desired shapes (biscuit/cooker cutter rounds are elegant), and place on baking sheet. Brush tops with olive oil, and grind some pepper on top. Optionally sprinkle a bit of salt on top as well. Place baking sheet in oven for ~30 minutes, or until tops of “fries” begin to brown. Increase heat to 450F and cook for another 5 minutes to get some extra browning on top. Remove from oven and serve hot or warm, although these are disturbingly good cold as well. The outsides should be firm, the insides falling apart and creamy. You can also shallow-fry these instead of baking them, and they will be better -- crispier on the outside, creamier on the inside -- but you pay the calories for the frying oil. NOTES: I swear by Smart&Final's "Chef's Review" brand Roasted Chicken Base for making broth at home, and that certainly helped the taste of the final product here. In fact, I swear by all of their bases except the vegetarian base, which is a sharp metallic salty horror. Avoid that one like the plague. Also, Smart&Final has the commercial spray products Vegelene (spray oil) and Bakelene (spray oil + flour) that are superb for "greasing" pans, can be used in relatively high-heat applications, and are odorless and tasteless in the final product. Current Mood: ambivalent (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
10:31 am	Maybe there are ways to do some of this? I want the ability to at least partially micro-manage external disks/volumes on my Mac. To wit: I have an external Firewire drive containing 2 volumes: backup and scratch. "backup" is my Time Machine target, and I never ever use it for everything else. Time Machine spins up the disk to do incrementals when it needs to, and that is fine. But whenever I do anything remotely interesting with a file dialog or when a program wants to look at files, it is more likely than not to spin up the external disk so it can look at the contents of "scratch". I almost never use the scratch volume, so why can't I set it so it isn't accessed at all unless I specifically hit a button in a file dialog? That way I would only pay the disk spin-up penalty in those miniscule percentage of cases where I actually want to read/write the scratch volume. I have a little external USB drive that I use solely for offsite backups and when I want to do mainenance on my internal drive -- running Disk Warrior on the internal drive, for example. About every 3-4 months I bring it onsite, wipe it, use Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my internal disk to it, and I'm done. The problem is that every time I boot off it to perform maintenance on the internal drive, it fires up all my usual startup items, Software Update bounces at me wanting to update it, Mail fires up and sends me duplicate copies of all the many iCal alarms from the last 3-4 months, startup item apps beg to be updated, etc. etc. It is a royal pain in the ass. I want to designate this disk/volume as a stupid boot drive that doesn't run startup items and the like. Ever. Unless I specifically boot it, flip a [software] switch, and reboot. The thing that bothers me the most is that these are the types of things that people who are diligent about backups run into all the time, and I don't understand why Apple hasn't made any of it easier. And that makes me suspect that they have made some of it easier, but I'm just in the dark. Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Bueller? Current Mood: frustrated (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009
6:08 pm	Unclear on the Christ Concept I ran across an article about Jesus, the man. This article has a section entitled "Factuality not important", which I duplicate here in its entirety for context: In between those points, the historical details are hard to verify, says Borg, who believes that the importance of the less "plausible" stories found in the Bible — such as the resurrection — lies not in whether they actually happened but in what they meant to Jesus' followers. "If we understand these stories as parables about Jesus — as metaphorical narratives about him — then the question of their factuality vanishes as an important question," Borg told LiveScience. "[With] this approach," he continued, "it does not matter whether Jesus was born of a virgin or changed water into wine or walked on water. To those who insist on their factuality, I would say: 'Fine — let's not argue about that. Now, let's talk about what they mean.'" Some parts of the Bible likely strayed from history for emphasis, Hagerland agrees. The public's negative reaction to Jesus' preaching of forgiveness is one example, he said. "The reactions as depicted in the Gospels must have been exaggerated because, as far as we can know from historical research, no first-century Jew would have considered the proclamation of forgiveness blasphemous," Hagerland said. "It is far more likely then, that the controversy over Jesus' proclamation of forgiveness is not grounded in an historical exchange, but was brought into the episode for rhetorical purposes." While crucifixion was a punishment consistent with Roman law during Jesus' time, historians say, the circumstances of Jesus' crucifixion certainly morphed in the decades following his death, according to Borg. "Historically, Jesus was executed by the authorities — Roman imperial authority in collaboration with high-ranking priestly authority. Historically he did not 'die for the sins of the world,' but he was killed by the powers that ruled his world," Borg said. "His followers found meaning in his death," Borg continued, and even though Jesus likely considered himself a prophet, the titles ascribed to him, "as messiah, Son of God, Lord, and so forth are probably post-Easter affirmations by his followers [and] testimonies to the significance that he had come to have in their lives. As testimonies, they are powerful affirmations about Jesus. And for Christians, true, even though they probably don't go back to Jesus himself." I beg to strongly differ with the beady-eyed flappy-headed Canadian Ms. Whipps -- factuality is nearly all that is important. Imagine that it could be established as incontrovertible fact that Jesus was not the product of a virgin birth, did not miraculously heal people, did not multiply loaves and fishes, did not turn water to wine, did not walk on water, was not actually resurrected and, most importantly of all, did not die for our sins, but was just one of many ordinary folk who got a little too lippy and were summarily executed by the Romans. This would have profound implications to all Christians, and especially to that special brand of pain-in-the-ass known as the evangelical Biblical-literalist Christian. It would reduce Jesus to just some run-of-the-mill charismatic populist dude who preached the golden rule, and bucked up the peasants because he was a peasant himself. Imagine an evangelical Christian who couldn't say, with a straight face, "he died for our sins." No more people holding up 3:16 signs on TV. They couldn't even claim that the Bible was the infallible word of God, because so much of the New Testament would have been proven to be at best metaphor and hyperbole, and at worst outright lies thinly disguised as rhetoric. In addition, the God Who Gave The World His Only Son would be demoted back to His Old Testament self: the evil vindictive insecure blood-sacrifice-demanding jerk whose only claim to helping mankind is a strong streak of militant Zionism. It would change the world. In addition to all the positive juiciness above, there would also be a few downsides. For example, every Muslim cleric in the world could justifiably denounce Christianity as a demonstrable pack of lies, which would no doubt help strengthen Muslim hardliners everywhere. But it would still be worth it. Current Mood: testy (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 18th, 2009
9:53 am	How to Get Every Middle-Aged Woman to Hate You How do you get every middle-aged woman in the world to hate you in one easy step? Simple: Fail to buy the Susan Boyle mythos. [This pause inserted to allow the raging rabid ageism screams from incensed women to lull a bit.] Allow me to illustrate my point by comparing Susan Boyle and another famous "Britain's Got Talent" contestant, Paul Potts. The quotes below are from an NYTimes article by Sarah Lyall. Miss Boyle’s revelatory performance brings to mind one from the series’s first season, in 2007. That time, Paul Potts, a tubby, dentally challenged, cripplingly shy Welsh cellphone salesman walked onstage and, looking as if he were about to cry, announced that he wanted to “sing opera.” The judges sighed and smirked. But then Mr. Potts burst forth into a soaring rendition of “Nessun dorma,” the aria from Puccini’s “Turandot,” forcing them into a quick re-evaluation and astonishing the equally skeptical audience. Mr. Potts’s audition clip has now been viewed more than 43 million times on YouTube, at youtube.com/watch?v=1k08yxu57NA. He went on to win the competition, sell two million copies of his first album, embark on a worldwide tour and inspire Prime Minister Gordon Brown to declare that he proved that “Britain really does have huge amounts of talent.” It does indeed sound very similar to Ms. Boyle's story, and it is. But while Ms. Boyle is a good singer, Mr. Potts is an excellent singer. And that should be the defining difference between the two. The show is called "Britain's Got Talent". It is not called "Britain's Got People Who Defy Ageist Stereotypes". So why -- when we've already had one shy, quite unattractive, overweight, middle-aged person astound the world -- is it only now that we have this tsunami of "debate about prejudice against the not so young and not so beautiful"? Was Mr. Potts young or beautiful? He looked like an overweight toad with bad teeth. If toads had teeth, that is. The answer, natch, is that Ms. Boyle is a woman, and women are much more subject to ageism and appearance-ism. And I get that. But all I could think about, while listening to Ms. Boyle for the first time, was how much attention and how many opportunities she is going to get out of this even though she is not remotely a "great" singer, and how many struggling singers there are out there who are much much better than Ms. Boyle, have worked and suffered for their art, and are therefore much more deserving than Ms. Boyle of that attention and those opportunities. I did not feel that way about Mr. Potts, because Mr. Potts' singing blew me away. Before you accuse me of ageism: all I am saying is that the best singer should win the spoils, regardless of sex or age or appearance. Ageism, when applied to singers, often takes the form of adulation of a young singer not because of her singing and entertaining talents but because of her looks and her age. What the throngs of Boyle-adoring crowing and ooing middle-aged women are engaging in is also the purest form of ageism: adulation of a singer not because of her singing and entertaining talents but because of her looks and her age. Before you hit that red hot glowing Comment button, I invite you to listen, really listen, with your eyes closed, to Ms. Boyle's singing, as much as you can over the cheers and whistles of the swooning crowd. Those of you who have seen significant productions of "Les Miserables" think back and compare her singing to what you heard from the stage. You might also listen to Mr. Potts for comparison's sake. Then ask yourself: Is this person really an excellent singer, or have I shaded my judgement of her singing based on her age, her appearance, her courage, and her perseverance. Am I judging her solely on her talent, as I should be, or on her merits in the context of her position in an ageist and far too patriarchal society? Current Mood: dreading chores (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 14th, 2009
12:33 am	I found the Flying Purple People Eater! [Warning: This missive is long and rambling. I realize and acknowledge that. I like it the way it is.] I lived in Ocean Springs, Mississippi from 1970 until I left for college in 1979. In typical fashion for my family, we lived in 4 different houses during that time, but the bulk of the time was spent on a 10-acre farm about 7 miles north of the coast. In order to travel between the farm and town, we had to cross the Fort Bayou Bridge. Yes, the bridge spanned a real bayou complete with alligators, tons of water moccasins (*), banks lined with live oak trees dripping Spanish moss, the whole nine yards. (*) A schoolmate distant acquaintance of mine died there while water-skiing. His friend driving the boat decided to essentially play crack the whip with him, he was flung into the reeds and right up to the bank, where he landed in a nest of recent moccassin hatchlings and was summarily bitten to death. The Fort Bayou Bridge at the time was a swing bridge like the one in the cute animation. The problem was that it got stuck open somewhat frequently. Most of the time it was only stuck for 5, 10, maybe 30 minutes, although there was more than one occasion when it remained wedged open for days. When that happened, we'd have to go all the way around Biloxi's Back Bay and across the Ocean Springs Biloxi bridge -- not the old one that Hurricane Camille destroyed, but the new one that Katrina has since destroyed -- about 30 miles out of the way if memory serves. But usually it was only stuck open for just long enough for my sister and I to get really bored with just sitting there, and we cast about for anything remotely interesting. That is how we first were made aware of a house far down and across the bayou, but still within sight; a house we were told was nicknamed The Flying Purple People Eater. It looked like it could fly. The entire roofline, as seen from the bayou, was sloped up like the roof of a pagoda. Here it is from the front, check out that roofline. And it was definitely, most definitely, purple. Finally, in the eponymous song, the beast was a One-Eyed One-Horned confection, and just look at that "horn" sticking up. What is more difficult to discern from this grainy picture is the fact that the windows are (a) huge, (b) two in number each on front and back of the house, and (c) shaped like stylized cat's eyes. If you follow the roofline from the right corner down to the portico, you can sort of get a feel. I wish I had a better picture. Back in the day, the curtains were always drawn shut on the two back windows, and the outward-facing fabric of those curtains was bright white. The contrast of the large white cats-eye-shaped windows on the purple house with the upcurving roof and the big horn on top was quite arresting. When I was in high school and (more importantly) had my driver's license, I decided one day to seek out the front of the house. At that time, it was quite clean and well-maintained, with no overgrown flowerbeds, obscuring palm trees, or green yard flamingos as seen in the picture I provided above. What you also cannot see in that picture is that to get from that parked vehicle to the front door, the residents had to cross a moat. A real honest-to-Doris moat ran at least 3/4 of the way around the structure, and connected to a very large swimming pool out back (or so I was told, and Google Earth's overhead view at least confirms the huge pool). I believe that a stream ran through the living room, connecting the moat in front with the pool in the back. I qualify my statement only because the father of one of my school chums was the locally-famous architect Carroll B. Ishee, and I might be getting mixed up with one of the two or three Ishee houses I visited during my adolescence, including Ishee's own home. Ishee's trademark was building on the heavily-wooded hillsides of wetlands, and in his usually quite vertical hillside designs he did things like have trees growing up through the house or deck, free-form bathtubs, and built in furniture and fountains. And maybe streams; memory fails me yet again. While I was poking around, I also found a picture of my first junior high school. I only went there for one year, 7th grade. That year the 1926-vintage building was condemned, so for my 8th grade year they put us in some awful temporary place and, get this, moved the entire school district's administrative staff into the condemned building. I distinctly remember fulfilling a writing assignment by penning a humorous essay about the obvious relative worth of students vs. that of administrative bureaucrats. By 9th grade the new junior high had been completed, so I went there. And finally in 10th grade I moved up to the hip modern architecture of the local high school. The domed-roof module was all classrooms and labs, the sloped-roof module the gym (roof had to be rebuilt after Katrina), and the final module was auditorium/theater. Current Mood: delighted (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Saturday, April 11th, 2009
4:46 pm	What Remote Button Are You? You Are Fast Forward Compared to most people, you are impatient and antsy. You are action oriented and love adventure. You don't care much for downtime. You like to skip the boring stuff and get to the good stuff. You don't like interruptions. You can't stand anything slow. You live your life in fast lane and expect others to do the same. What Remote Button Are You? (Comment on this)
4:10 pm	Methinks I just saw Master's leader break a rule On the 10th green at the Master's today, Saturday, Kenny Perry's ball was several feet from the hole. Chad Campbell's ball was much closer to the hole. I'm not sure exactly where because the TV view cut away after Perry's putt, but I know Perry was away, and I think Campbell was about a foot or two away. Perry made his putt. On the way to take his ball from the hole, he used his putter to tamp down something on the green about 2 feet or so from the hole, presumably spike marks. The place he tamped down was not on Campbell's line of putt. However, if Campbell's subsequent putt had lipped out of the hole, his next stroke might very well have been aided by Perry's tamping down of spike marks. If Perry had tamped down spike marks on an extension of Campbell's line on the far side of the cup, he would definitely have been penalized under Rule 16-1c, because if Campbell missed his putt then Campbell's line of putt on his next attempt would have been improved. Rule 16-1c says: "Any other damage to the putting green must not be repaired if it might assist the player in his subsequent play of the hole." [Emphasis mine] Since technically Perry's tamping down of spike marks before Campbell had holed out could have assisted Campbell in his subsequent play of the hole, I contend that Perry technically was in breach of Rule 16-1c. Had he waited to tamp down the spike marks until all players had holed out, there would of course be no issue. And, no, I would NOT like to see him penalized for this! (Comment on this)
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
1:32 pm	Kindle 2 indexing books by uploading to Amazon servers? I have been attempting to find out why my 6+ week old Kindle insists that none of my 140+ books are indexed for searching, including the user guide that came pre-loaded on it. I even left it plugged into A/C power for a good 14+ hours, and it still didn't index anything. I tried a trick someone posted: search all items for a word, and at the bottom of the [in my case non-existent] list of search hits you'll see "Items Not Yet Indexed (###)", where ### is the count of items not yet indexed. If you click on that header, it will list all the items not yet indexed and you can watch them get indexed. I tried that and for some time the screen updated at various intervals, but the number of books not yet indexed never changed. So to be sure, I searched for a few simple words like "time" and "into". In doing so, I found that about 3 books were indexed, but 141 were not. And the number would not update. And then I had an evil evil thought: the only thing that I think I do differently from most new Kindle owners is obsessively keep the wireless turned off. I turned it on just long enough to receive a book when I purchased from the Kindle Store, then turned it back off again. What if the Kindle does not index on the device, but instead uploads books to Amazon where they are indexed on Amazon servers, then it downloads the indexed version back? So I turned wireless on, and lo and behold, it started indexing. At least I think it did. You see, as I type I'm currently searching every few minutes in all my items for the word "into". I've worked with indexing software before. The Kindle understandably doesn't index words like "the" and "a", but "into" does get some hits, and that word is likely to be in most, if not all, books on my device. The interesting thing is that iterative searches over time for the same word in the same set of book "my items", meaning everything on the device, are turning up variable search results. At first I got 2 books as search hits, then later 4 books, and now I'm down to 1 book again. All within the same set, so it isn't just randomly picking books, but it randomly shows me hits or doesn't. Just now I searched again, and now I have 7 hits: the 4 hits I had at my height before plus another 3. Interestingly, the count of items not yet indexed does correspond correctly to the number of hits. If I have 1 hit, it says 141 items are not yet indexed. If I have 7 hits, it says 135 items are not yet indexed. That part makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that the number goes up as well as down. Regardless, I have proven to my own satisfaction that the Kindle 2 requires that the wireless be on to index books, and the only reason I can fathom for that is that it is uploading the books for processing server-side. This has profound privacy implications. It means that if I load some sensitive document, say a project plan or a political campaign strategy, from my personal computer onto my Kindle, a document that was created offline and has never seen a server for security reasons, that document will get uploaded to Amazon behind my back and indexed on their servers. I would really like someone with more expertise in such matters to prove or disprove my conjecture re indexing and wireless upload on the Kindle 2. Current Mood: not happy (1 Comment |Comment on this)