¡Americano!

Eggs: 1; Pease: 0

2007-03-16T23:37:00.001-05:00

I was chatting with my fine Irish penpal about 2 weeks ago, when she made reference to "Eggs & Soldiers", and how it was the best breakfast food. Now, since I've never heard of the dish, and being the curious sort, I figured I'd ask. After all, a breakfast food that has a martial feel to it has to be pretty awesome, right? So she told me she'd find the instructions, and a few days later, I received the recipe in my inbox.

Now I have to admit, I was a bit disappointed upon first glance. Nowhere in the recipe did I see napalm, catapults, Panzerschreck, or even small caliber ammunition. Instead, the recipe was filled with decidedly un-warlike things like eggs, toast, boiling water, and salt. But, considering my normal breakfast the last few weeks has been a grandfatherly bowl of Quaker Oats, I had nothing to lose. Really, how hard could eggs & toast be?

So, in anticipation of making my very own eggs & soldiers, I picked up a half dozen eggs and some bread. And tonight, the forces of nature finally conspired to keep me indoors. And by "forces of nature conspired to keep me inside," I mean, "a big snowstorm crapped about 8 inches of snow all over central New Hampshire, so there's no way I'm going out." Here's what I saw when I looked outside this afternoon.

What else could I do? The stars had aligned. The universe was prompting me to make eggs and soldiers.

I meditated on life and the universe to bring myself to the appropriate zen-like state required for cooking. I brought my water to a perfect boil, then reduced to medium heat. I salted the water. I warmed my eggs to room temperature by letting them sit for a while on the plate before dropping them into the water. I even used a little T-pin to poke holes in the egg to protect against the eggs breaking open from the heat. But somewhere, somehow, it all went terribly wrong.

When I took the eggs out of the boiling water, I thought I had it right. I took the ends off each of the eggs, exposing the nicely cooked egg white inside. I used a sharp knife to cut away the additional white around the... hard... fully cooked... grayish-yellow... yolk.

Here's how I imagined my dinner would look.

And here's what I actually ended up with.

To begin with, I lose points for presentation. It doesn't even look that appetizing. Note to self: use white eggs, and golden-toasted white bread in future attempts. Place on clean dish which is not covered with crumbs from the toast-cutting.

However, the real kicker here is the fact that the egg yolks are cooked through. From what I understand, the entire goal of proper eggs & soldiers is to dip your toast strips into the golden, silky texture of the warmed yolk, and enjoy a thoroughly continental form of culinary nirvana. And at that, I failed miserably. Instead, what I had for dinner tonight was hard-boiled eggs with cut-up toast. Which, in the order of things, is about as continental as a Pepperoni Hot Pocket.

Really, quite close, I think. I just need to cook the eggs a little less... maybe 4.5 minutes, instead of the 5.5 minutes I gave them tonight. And really, as long as the eggs are unfertilized, I can keep on trying.

That's just how we roll, bitch . . .

2006-12-12T18:00:00.000-05:00

Just reading through the news this afternoon, and ran across this article, titled "Boy Kicks Hawk in the Face, Rescues Dog."

This took place in Weston, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. A lesser boy might have just said, "Well sorry pup, looks like you're toast," and cried while the hawk took off with his puppy. But Chris Campo, my new hero, responded this way:

"So, I step on the hawk's wing, and then I kick it in the face," Campo explains, "Then it kinda rolled down the steps off the deck."

The article goes on to state that this response is actually a wee bit risky:

Wildlife Officer John Trumpaitis says hawks are dangerous. "They're a raptor, and they'll tear you apart," Trumpaitis said, "They'll go after your face, your eyes."

Chris Campo, I salute you. You saved your puppy, and you reminded Mother Nature that you just don't mess with kids from Massachusetts, where underestimating your opponent gets you a boot to the face.

Fifty Million Elvis Fans Can't Be Wrong?

2006-11-26T23:48:00.000-05:00

I was browsing around today, and ran across this post on MetaFilter, in which an [apparently] accomplished woman in her early thirties who has had trouble making the old love connection asks the question, "Is it possible to just be too damn awesome?" In addition to being an interesting & entertaining thread to read through, it got me thinking a little bit.

Having been a willing participant in more than a few bad dates in the past few years, it's quite comforting to believe that that's why most of those dates went poorly. The fault wasn't mine at all, it's the other person's fault. After all, they didn't realize what a generally amazing person I am, and ruin perfectly good buttons & seams in their haste to take off their clothes for me. Comforting, but it's the false comfort of self-delusion.

From an early age, we're all taught that we're very special individuals. Show of hands: How many of you, when you were young, WEREN'T told by your mom/dad that you were a great catch, and that some girl or guy would be lucky to have you? And of those of you who are raising your hands, how many of you were raised in the wild by wolves?

Right. You can put your hands down.

It's not that your parents -- and maybe the Stuart Smalley-esque 9th grade Health teacher who taught you to take off those "Red Pencil Glasses" so that you could see what a special and unique individual you are, right before that single week of sex ed started -- meant to delude you. They meant well. It's just that nobody is so awesome that they can't get a couple dates.

We all know someone in our lives who bitches an inordinate amount of the time about how they're misunderstood, they can't catch a break, nobody they meet "understands" them, or how everybody they work with is just out to undermine them and make them fail. The variations on this statement are nearly infinite, and I think we've all heard, or said, something along these lines at some point. And here's another hint: If you're sitting there saying, "I don't know anybody like that!" it's probably because the person in your circle of friends who does that is you, you insufferable pain in the ass. Own it.

It boils down to a very simple rule in cases like this. Fifty million Elvis fans can't be wrong. If you're the only person in the world who thinks you're not a pain in the ass, you're probably a pain in the ass. And yes, liberal arts majors, I'm well aware that this theory is arguably a form of the logical fallacy known as the argumentum ad populum. The point here isn't to call anybody names -- that's just a perk, not the overall intent of this missive.

If you're open enough to actually listen to the criticisms other people level at you, and don't just ascribe their opinions to them "not getting you", it offers a wonderful opportunity for self-improvement.

On several occasions, from several different people (co-workers, and people I've met out at bars & parties with friends), I've been told that I appear to be *very* unfriendly / stand-offish at first glance. Nobody's ever quite been able to say what it is about my bearing that gives that impression, but I've heard it from too many people for it not to have some truth to it; I've heard some variation on the, "Wow, you're not what I expected you'd be like when I first saw you," theme too many times for it to be merely coincidence. I'm perfectly willing to accept that I'm doing something to give this impression, but I'm unable to put my finger on what exactly it is, since I think most people who already know me would probably not choose "unfriendly" as a word that best describes me.

So, as an exercise in self-improvement... what sort of behavior / attitude would you, dear reader, label as "unfriendly" in someone you're seeing for the first time in a social environment?

I'll keep you my dirty little secret...

2006-10-06T00:12:00.000-05:00

It's amazing, in retrospect, how unnoticed the progression has been. Back in March of 2006, I joined a cult. I didn't know it at the time, but I guess I'm a full-fledged convert at this point. Having downed a couple glasses of the Kool-Aid, I'm a candidate for deprogramming any day now.

No, don't worry, I didn't shave my head -- though my hair has always been kept pretty short -- I don't wear robes and walk around airports chanting, and I'm still not a really big fan of incense -- I much prefer my vanilla scented candle, thank you very much. But I did buy a Mac. A Mac Mini, to be precise. And after 6 months of using it as my primary home system, I'm definitely a huge fan. Here's my conversion story.

Eye contact across a smoky room

I'd seen the Mac Mini's a few times, and heard some good things about them as well. Tiny, quiet, attractive, simple, elegant. But I hadn't really considered buying one until the hard drive on my Windows XP machine went bad, and I was confronted with spending about $200 to buy a new, good-sized hard drive for a 5 year old system that has been slowly getting more and more flaky as the hardware totters on towards obsolescence.

So I decided to stop at the Apple Store at the Mall in Salem, NH. Poked around a little bit in the store, and really really liked the mini after just playing around with it for a few minutes. I don't do a WHOLE lot on the computer at home -- web browsing, email, quicken, music, photos -- nothing that I need a supremely high powered system for. So given the Mini's small footprint, quiet nature, and cheap price tag, I decided to go for it. I left the store $600 poorer, and one PowerPC-based Mac Mini richer.

Can I buy you a drink?

Took all of 15 minutes to open it up and set it up on my desk (leaving a HUGE empty space where my tower had been). Once it was connected, I started it up, and started exploring. I will say, getting used to the Mac OS took some time. An entirely new operating system, new applications, and some new ways of getting things done, and some old habits that I tried to carry over from Windows that just... didn't apply any more. It was an exciting, and occasionally frustrating, experience.

Love at first sight? (Or: "The good")

It's pretty much silent, unless I'm running something that really causes the CPU to churn, the fans are almost inaudible.

All the software I might possibly use for personal use on a daily basis is there:
- Firefox for browsing the web
- Adium for instant messaging (MSN, Yahoo, AIM, ICQ, and Google Talk all in one!
- Itunes for music & managing my iPod.
- OpenOffice.org for viewing/editing MS Office-format documents.
- OS X's Mail for sending & reading email.
- OS X's iCal for managing my busy social schedule.
- OS X's AddressBook, for keeping track of my posse.
- NetNewsWire, for keeping track of syndicated (RSS/Atom) content.
- MarsEdit, for writing this here post so you all can read about my boring life.
- WebNote Happy, a great bookmark manager that integrates with the Del.icio.us "Social Bookmarking" site.
- Skype, for making those free internet calls
- MusicIP Mixer, a wonderful add-in for your iTunes library that'll help you create "soundalike" playlists easily, and help you mine that library for cool songs you didn't even know you had.
- CalorieKing.com's Nutrition Manager, for when I want to depress myself over how fat I am.
- Measuring Cup, for keeping track of all my experiments with good taste in the kitchen.
- Quicken, for keeping track of where my money's going
- Apple's iPhoto, for obsessively organizing & categorizing all my digital photos.
- DreamWeaver, for some occasional web site work I do for Elite Dekhockey, the hockey league I play in.
- A host of other "productivity" apps like Backup, QuickSilver, XCode, TigerLaunch, SubEthaEdit, VoodooPad, and more, that help me keep organized, and get things done faster, or better.

As I mentioned, it's small, so I have more space on my desktop. Here's the entire rig. I've posted it to Flickr because flickr gives me the ability to annotate the photo so you can see what the various pieces of equipment you're looking at are.

In general, the OS X interfaces & applications are fairly intuitive -- they do what you expect, and I'm really finding myself enjoying the consistency of the experience.

It's BSD-based, and has X11 & some nifty command line stuff. If you know what that means, you'll like it. If you don't know what it means, well... it's got a Unix flavoring that lots of geeks will like.

Sorry, I'm with someone. (Or: "The bad")

Technical, but... the mini's integrated video means that the display uses up some of the meager 512 MB of RAM on the system. This can slow things down a bit if you open up a lot of apps at once.

It is slow in general. This can be attributed to numerous things -- not a TON of RAM, 5400rpm hard drive, a slower G4 PPC processor. It's not really built for super speedy performance.

Occasional wonkiness with my iPod. It'll "not see it" now and though. (Though in fairness, this seems to have improved significantly with the release of iTunes 7.0.1 a week or two ago, so it may have been iTunes weirdness causing that).

Lots of different keyboard shortcuts. I'm a dedicated keyboard fan -- I love keyboard shortcuts, because I can type fast, and hate having to reach for the mouse. But I've had to learn a whole new set of keystrokes, because this is OS X, not Windows XP. And, up until I installed QuickSilver a week or two ago, I was reaching for my mouse far too often.

What was going on with her teeth? (Or: "The ugly")

Honestly, not much to add in this section. The graphics are good, the experience is pleasant, and all in all, the aesthetics of the the operating system & the hardware itself are pretty good. Compared to the generic Best Buy tower I was using to run Windows XP, it's downright gorgeous. But, as they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so your mileage may vary.

So can I call you sometime?

After almost 6 months of use, I'm really quite happy with the purchase. The system's a little slow at times, and learning all the new keystrokes still screws me up now and then, but I don't find myself missing anything about my old Windows system. The combination of a nice GUI with functional applications and a robust shell environment where I can get things done (I spend lots of time on Solaris & Red Hat systems at work, after all... having that Unix-ish command line is very comforting) quickly is really great. The applications are at least "equivalent" to the similar software on Windows, and in some cases, they blow away the Windows software (Adium, iTunes, iPhoto, Keynote) in terms of functionality, or they simply do things that I've never seen windows software do (Exposé, QuickSilver, WebNote Happy).

"Definitely. Two days is like industry standard."

Bottom line: if you're looking for a new system to replace that Windows system that's on its last legs, you might want to look at the Mini. For a typical computer user, it's a reliable, enjoyable experience. The newer Mac Minis also feature Intel processors (upgraded from PPC G4's), and other better, more capable hardware, which would certainly make some of my complaints less relevant. Pretty much any software that casual users might need is available (and in some cases, available free, or quite cheaply), and even for a reasonably advanced user, it's got a lot to offer. Things like SubEthaEdit for people needing to do collaborative writing of any sort, and Exposé & QuickSilver for productivity offer things that I've never seen the equivalent to on Windows. That doesn't mean they don't exist, but I don't ever recall hearing of equivalents.

As for me, I plan to pick up a new laptop sometime in the next 6 months or so, and it will probably be a MacBook Pro. And if I get another desktop system, I'd say that, at least for now, another Mini is probably the way I'd go, too. If you live near an Apple Store, stop in and at least check them out. The systems are really quite impressive.

How I spent my summer vacation . . . (Or: "16 plus 12 equals 20?!?!?!")

2006-05-29T23:17:00.000-05:00

So about three weeks ago, Dan asked us if we could help him move on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. He just closed on a place up in Holden, and so we gladly packed him up in Clinton and made the move.

Now, about three days before the move, Dan informed us that the move itself wouldn't take long, but that if we didn't mind, he'd have Bob & I (two of the more mechanically inclined members of the moving crew) start working on building a play set for his kids in the back yard. Bob and I both agreed -- "Sure, no problem. Can't take that long, right?" We were thinking it would be a couple swings, some monkey bars, and a slide or something like that. Yeah. Not quite. We constructed A Timber-Bilt Glacier Peak play structure -- Option C, naturalement, as Les Francais might say.

Here's what we constructed:

Oh yeah, in case you can't see it, on the far side? That's a spiral slide:

This thing was *immense*! And yes, in case you weren't sure, this thing is made so that up to TEN (10) kids can play on it at once. And it's entirely constructed of pressure-treated 4x4, 2x4, 4x6, and 1.25x6 timbers. Oh, and in case you missed the news, it's rained like the great goddamn flood for the past couple weeks here in New England. So yeah, all of the boards were absolutely soaked, which means they weighed about 5 times more than they normally do.

But we wrestled the s.o.b. into submission, I'm pleased to say. Bob & I did most of the measuring, cutting, drilling, screwing (heh heh. He said "screwing".), bolting, and other assorted assembly steps... Dan & Barry provided some occasional help when they weren't doing packing / moving stuff in the house. It's a good feeling seeing the thing go up, but it took us about 8 hours Saturday, 12 hours Sunday, and another 3 this evening to finish the thing -- and that last swing (the leftmost one in the second picture) still isn't attached, because we ran out of daylight and couldn't see to cut the cross-braces for it, and attach it. Another weekend.

And if you're from the Timber-Bilt company, and reading this... I'd like to point out that 16 + 12 != 20. There were a few steps in your plans that read like the person writing them was coming down off a 4-day meth binge. There was one part of the the instructions that just made us absolutely nuts, because it was kind of a key point in the construction, where we were placing three pretty important structural boards next to each other. 16 inches between the first two, 12 inches between the second two, and then your plans go on to show that the distance from the outside of the first board to the outside of the third board was only 20 inches. Now I'm not a math major, but I do know that ONE of your measurements is off by 8 inches. A little verification of your numbers would be fabulous.

All in all, if you're going to attempt building one of these yourself, prepare for it to take at least 2 or 3 days, and by 2 or 3 days, I mean "10 a.m. to sundown" days. The claims in the pamphlet of "5 - 10 hours of construction time" are only accurate, apparently, if you own a general contracting company and can have a crew of 10 - 12 men come in and build the thing. Oh, yeah, and if you are, then your crew should be on speed if you really want them to move along.

In all honesty, a truly rewarding experience. Got to spend a lot of time outside in the sun with some friends, talk some shit, build something out of a pile of lumber, crack some jokes, curse a little bit, curse a little bit more, curse one last time, drink a couple beers, eat a pizza, curse some more because the sun's going down, and then start in again the next day. It was fun, but I ache, and I am tired.

In closing, I would recommend that you do not attempt this at home unless you have the right tools: a couple GOOD cordless drills, (DeWalt, Makita, something like that... none of this $15 throw-away crap), a couple good socket wrench sets, a couple LONG-ass drill bits (ever try drilling a 3/8" hole the long way through a 4x6 pressure treated timber? No? It takes a while.), a couple decent hammers, a good circular saw, a level, a couple tape measures, and a LOT of patience.

Good times were had by all, and the kids love it. I'm going to stop by and take some pictures of this thing to show off to all the girls... I can just imagine the sound of 10,000 women ovulating simultaneously when they see my handiwork...

Say a prayer for me...

2006-05-13T00:44:00.000-05:00

I'm buried by the sound...

Went out tonight with Dan & Bob, for our biweekly meeting of the First Husband's Club. Fun time... started off the night at The Black Brimmer, which is where we should have stayed.

Here's why -- in one corner, at The Brimmer, we have Hypercane, bursting at the seams with sonic goodness. Yes, they're a cover band, and yes, the cover charge -- in MANCHESTER, NH -- was 8 bucks. But these guys were really good... check out the setlist that they lay out. They pick good material, AND they make it work. But the Brimmer was slow, so we decided to wander up the street in the rain to The Shaskeen. BAD MOVE.

So we get to the Shaskeen, and we're told we need to pay $5 to see a band whose name I forget, but "Jesse's Girl" & "Jenny (867-5309)" were big staples of the set. Except it wasn't "Eight Six Seven Five Three Oh Nine", it was -- for the ironically virginal crowd -- "Eight Six Seven Five Three..." -- wait for it, wait for it -- "SIXTY NINE!" Yeah, way to go, asshat... let's change the lyrics of the song into a stupid Beavis & Butthead punchline for the backwards-baseball-hat wearing set.

So, in the final analysis, if you are not an asshat, and you should ever find yourself in Manchester, New Hampshire on a Friday night, and need something to do... hit the Brimmer. Say hi, I'll buy you a beer.

New car!

2006-05-10T00:12:00.000-05:00

On February 17th, I took delivery of a new car. A 2006 Volvo S40 T5 AWD, in Barents Metallic Blue. Quite a luxurious upgrade from the Divorcée Special, the 1996 Geo Metro hatchback in Crap Red.

So far, absolutely love it. It came more or less fully loaded, and it's a dream to drive. Quiet, comfortable, great sound system, love the navigation system, great pickup, fun manual transmission. Only real downside is the trunk space: there's not much. Luckily I don't need that much.

The Geo has been donated to Cars Helping America, where it was sold at auction for a grand total of US$750. And somehow, part of me can't help but think that the poor bastard who paid $750 for that car at auction will regret it one day!

I started looking shortly after New Year's, when the Geo started developing an unnatural thirst for oil (~ 1-2 quarts a week. Slow leak somewhere, but couldn't find where). I decided that, rather than spend a bunch of money fixing a car I was planning to get rid of by April anyway, I'd start looking for a new car. Briefly considered the Acura TL, the Mazda3, and the Mazda6. Acura was okay, but my brother has a TL, so I was kind of interested in getting something different -- don't want to be a "me too" car buyer. The Mazda dealerships turned me right off with their sales tactics, and their attempts to nickel-and-dime me into paying more than was reasonable for the car.

So I was looking around at some benefit info and financing info at work, and I found out that Fidelity, as a "Ford Partner" company, makes Ford's "X-Plan" pricing available to Fidelity employees. X Plan pricing is available on any Ford, or Ford-owned, vehicle. Just so happens that Volvo is a Ford-owned company, and so, I decided to check them out. I was sold from the moment I started my test drive, and the X-Plan pricing for Volvo basically boils down to "1-2% over invoice cost," which is a pretty great deal. No dickering back and forth, no haggling, they show you the invoice, show you the % over that, and that's it. Easy, stress-free, highly recommended if you can take advantage of it.

I bought the car at Lovering Volvo here in beautiful Nashua, NH, and was extremely pleased with the experience from start to finish, dealing with Len, Rick, Franklin, and the rest of the ladies & gentlemen who I met there. I've posted a few more pictures of the new car to Flickr for your viewing delight.

Hey, yo, whatever comes up comes out . . .

2003-10-06T13:39:00.000-05:00

Funny observation the other day in South Station.

This woman was giving SOME poor bastard an earful on her cell phone. I happened to walk by just in time to hear her screaming (in the middle of South Station),

"I ain't going all the way to no MOTHERFUCKIN' Dorchester! FUCK that!"

Now, don't get me wrong... I wouldn't want to go all the way to no motherfuckin' Dorchester, either... but this woman seemed to have no sense whatsoever that she was standing in the middle of this cavernous public space, screaming at the top of her lungs.

I have got to get a cell phone with a camera so I can capture these little moments.

"Back when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark, this is how we used to make the party start . . . "

2003-08-28T14:37:00.000-05:00

I officially have to visit Miami -- how awesome is this?

Where the humans are caged, and the monkeys run free!