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January 25, 2008
Oh, Man, This is SO WRONG!
Check out this entry over at Pharyngula. It's a Jesus-styled switchplate, and the toggle positioning is, um, unfortunate.
Posted by Berry at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)
January 20, 2008
Teh Cute!
There's a whole collection of uber-cute aminals over at Dark Roasted Blend. How long do you think it will take before one of them appears on the front page of "I Can Has Cheezburger"? Whoever guesses closest in the comments will win "the people's ovation and fame forever", which is Berry-speak for nothing at all. Still, it could be fun.
Posted by Berry at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)
January 16, 2008
Oh. My. God.
So, I like food and cooking, and I like TV shows about food and cooking, and since I like Ryori no Tetsujin (Iron Chef) I thought I liked Japanese shows about cooking.
But this show, about a guy named "Hard Gay" who, dressed rather like South Park's Mr. Slave, teaches kids to eat things they might find yucky, is... well ... let's just say it will NEVER appear on Food Network.
Oy.
Posted by Berry at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)
Goths everywhere rejoice!
"Even blacker" is the new black.
Posted by Berry at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)
January 15, 2008
Ten Things I've Done that You Probably Haven't
On the Whatever, Scalzi challenges his readers to list ten things they've done that others probably haven't. Here's my list. What's yours?
1) Flown (as in, my hands on the controls) an airplane through Norwegian Fjords.
2) Photographed Nikita Kruschev.
3) Developed film in Edward Weston's darkroom.
4) Taken bass lessons from Carol Kay.
5) Programmed the worlds first user-steerable webcam. (Now inactive, alas.)
6) Worked at the world-famous Xerox PARC, in the process obtaining a finite Erdös Number.
7) Leaned out the window from which two Bohemian governers were hurled in 1618, in what is known as "The Defenestration of Prague".
8) Watched the inside of my right knee be operated on.
9) Driven a Bentley and served as a Concours judge for the Rolls-Royce Owners Club.
10) Touched Friendship Seven the Mercury capsule that carried John Glenn into orbit, AND climbed into the helicopter that plucked it from the sea.
Posted by Berry at 09:06 AM | Comments (1)
January 14, 2008
Air Force One
OK, no matter what you think of the incumbent, actually spotting Air Force One on final approach is pretty cool.
Today I was driving to lunch when I spotted a blue and white 747 on downwind to Three-Two Left at Moffet Federal Airfield. (The home of the blimp hangars you may have seen on Mythbusters, which happen to be 1-1/2 miles from my office).
This in itself was not so unusual, but there was an F-16 flying in formation with it! "Aha!" I said to myself "This must be Air Force One."
I tried to take a cameraphone picture, but between fumbling the keys, having to actually, you know, drive, and trees in the way, I failed.
Still, it was pretty neat.
(TUESDAY UPDATE): Given that GWB was in Saudi Arabia, it may well have been AF2 instead. Still neat.
Posted by Berry at 01:52 PM | Comments (0)
January 10, 2008
Leopard
Well, I've installed Leopard on my work iMac. It's mostly nice.
Pro:
* Time machine ROCKS.
* Spaces is very cool. Not really new -- I had similar functionality in X Window Managers 15 years ago -- but cool.
Minus:
* Synergy broke, but I wound up downloading SynergyXM, which is a GUI/Preference pane wrapper. Docco is a bit inadequate, but once figured out this is actually better.
* X11 won't let me drag windows all the way onto my second display. This is annoying, but I'm working around it for now.
* xemacs broke. A quick "sudo port upgrade xemacs" failed until I installed the developers tools, and then just fixed everything.
* The wallpaper on my second display got reset.
Overall, it's good stuff.
(Friday Update) Installing an updated but unofficial X11 solved the second display problem.
Posted by Berry at 01:01 PM | Comments (2)
January 09, 2008
Marathon Morning
There are a number of Checker Marathons running around town. These were cars built to be Taxis, originally designed in the 50s, and manufactured more or less unchanged until 1982. They were rugged, reliable and roomy, which is why so many are still on the road.
I ordinarily wouldn't mention it, but this morning on the way to work I saw not one but TWO in the space of one block, more or less where I spotted the Google Streetview car a few days ago.
Nifty!
Posted by Berry at 09:09 AM | Comments (0)
January 08, 2008
Spam = Banned
I've started banning the IP addresses that attempt to comment-spam me. Be warned.
Any reasonable commenter has nothing to fear, even if they disagree with me.
Posted by Berry at 10:22 AM | Comments (0)
Iron Chef Berry rides again
The other day Alene and I made a terrific chicken dish. It goes like this.
Take some stale bread -- we used gluten-free toast left over from the previous day's crab feast -- and make it into breadcrumbs in the food processor. Also chop some mushrooms and parsley. Mix it all together in the food processor and add some hard Italian cheese. We used Pecorino Romano, but Parmesan, Asiago or Cacciacavallo would work well too. We added a bit of garlic too, but you can omit this if you don't like garlic.
Now take two whole boneless chicken breasts -- the kind with both breast halves still attached. You can get bone in, bone them out and save the bones for stock if you like. Put them skin side down on a citting board, season with salt and pepper and put the bread crumb-mushroom mixture along the center of one. Lay the other on top and pin together around the edge with toothpicks, or tie with buther's twine. You chould get a fat sausage-shaped thing.
Brown this in a hot pan with a little olive oil until nice and crispy, then finish in an oven at, oh, 375 for about 20 minutes, until the chicken is just cooked through. If your pan can take it, just pop the whole thing into the oven.
When done, remove the chicken roll, ballotine or involtino or whatever you want to call it, to a platter to rest while you make the sauce.
Deglaze the pan with a little white wine, reduce, add a little butter and heat through.
Now slice the roll into thick slices to expose the lovely filling, and serve with a bit of the sauce over.
We had it with balsamic roasted brussels sprouts, and rice.
It was even terrific as leftovers the next day!
Posted by Berry at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
January 07, 2008
New Issue of HELIX up
Now that the blog is functioning again I should mention that the superlative HELIX has had a new issue up since the New Year; check it out for these stories:
* "Suicide Drive" by Charlie Anders
* "Seraphim" by Maya Bohnhoff
* "Night of the Living POTUS" by Adam-Troy Castro
* "The Last Man's First Year on Earth" by David W. Goldman
* "Salvager's Gold" by Selina Rosen
* "Family Tree" by Vaughan Stanger
* "Drooling Wizards" by Laura J. Underwood
If you like it give us money ("Us" because, full disclosure, I am the Communications Officer, i.e. first line reader of all the email.) since that's the only way we can pay such excellent writers.
Posted by Berry at 03:22 PM | Comments (0)
Comment Registration enabled
If you have a TypeKey account, you can now comment without needing to be approved.
Posted by Berry at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)
Another Gig Down
Last Saturday my band, No Sudden Moves, played another gig, this time at Wini's retirement party. Judging from the speechifying, Wini was retiring from the law firm she's worked at for 35 years, and will be sorely missed.
Bruce Barley sat in on guitar, and added his unique sound as we played two sets of rock and blues from Van Morrison to Nick Lowe to John Hiatt to the Grateful Dead. The feedback was everyone had a great time and some quite cute folks spent a lot of time dancing, always a plus.
This was our first gig with our new drummer, John, whose rock steady beat and funky rhythms made everything better.
The gig was at the union hall of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 332, which turned out to be a fine venue, with a
stage of five 4x8 foot risers, a 40x40 foot wood dance floor, full kitchen, and solar power! This was apparently the first commercial building in San Jose to have solar power, pretty cool.
Friend of the Band Russ brought a thousand watt power amp and main speakers for the PA and made sure we sounded good; Thanks Russ!
Posted by Berry at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)
Google Streetview
So this morning on the way to work I was two cars behind the Google Streetview camera car. That link goes to a crappy cameraphone picture I snapped; it's the best of three (really!).
So in a few weeks when the data is processed, if you Streetview at the intersection of Charleston and Industrial in Mountain View, CA, you may see my blue MINI Cooper in the shot. How cool is that?
(Friday Update) Spotted it again Friday, in Sunnyvale, northbound on El Camino between Bernardo and Grant, where I was caught by the light. Another place to check for blue MINIs in Streetview.
Posted by Berry at 01:12 PM | Comments (2)
January 06, 2008
Spam spam spam spam
Well, comment spammers have found my blog. This has pushed me into doing something to it for a change. Luckily I have comments set to require approval, so if there's anyone watching they won't show up.
Onward!
Posted by Berry at 05:27 PM | Comments (1)