Saturday: farmer's market

I finally got up early enough on a Saturday to head to the KCC farmer's market, with only moderate prompting via the internet.  It's a nice big market, although it doesn't really have a good flow, so it kind of gets jammed up with all the strollers and dogs (despite the no pets allowed signs).  There are a lot of tents selling prepared food, which tends to hurt the flow as well.  Food doesn't magically make itself, so there are lots of people queuing up to order and get what they ordered. They don't seem to bother to get out of the way of other people though.  I think this is a good reason for me to try to wake up earlier.  Another reason would be to get lilikoi from the lilikoi girl. She was sold out by the time I got there.

My eventual purchases were: corn on the cob ($2.50 /6. all corn is sold with the ends cut off here. I don't like that.), baby romaine ($4.50/2 heads), Oahu grown ground beef ($6.50/lb), passion fruit hot pepper jam ($8/jar), and Meyer lemons ($1.50/2). I plan on eating the corn with the pulled pork I'm going to make tomorrow.  The jam is for the pork as well, as I wanted a sweet and spicy jam to put on the sandwiches.  I was hoping the Oahu beef would be in cuts, but ground beef is good as well.  I will admit that I bought the lemons solely so I could ask about the lilikoi.  I have no plan for them at all.

The romaine looked amazing, so I used it to make a big salad for dinner.  I'm not sure it comes through in the photo, but this lettuce goes from normal lettuce green at the root end to nearly christmas tree dark green at the tips. I had a local tomato in the fridge from last weekend (it's a whole foods tomato. I probably should have picked up some market tomatoes too, but I didn't like the handful I saw today.), so I sliced that up as well.  I topped it with a quick drizzle of balsamic vinegar and a quicker drizzle of olive oil, then added some fresh pepper and some sea salt to bring out the tomato flavor a bit more.  Finally was the Parmesan, and what was basically a chiffonade of prosciutto to add some balance.

I think next time, I might skip the prosciutto, and add something else instead.  The thought I just had was that a bit of quickly pan fried calamari hood might be a good addition. I assume that's easy to find around here somewhere.

friday: frozen pizza

I didn't take a picture. You can probably imagine what it looks like. Pizza, that was once parbaked and then frozen, and then baked once more to completion. It seemed a reasonably fast way to put a dinner together with a minimum of effort.  For some reason, nothing's really tasted good today. I don't know if it's just a side-effect of this cursed cold or what.  I kind of hope something strikes me tomorrow at either WF or the farmer's market (if I can get up for it) that makes me really want to cook something delicious.

I'm kind of meh about the fact that there's a long weekend this week.  I've been planning a big Star Wars marathon, but that kind of feels meh too. I'm definitely bowling on Sunday, because I'm pretty sure that's the only thing keeping me sane now-a-days.  I keep seeing that lighthouse on the way back from Waimanalo, so maybe I'll go there and do the mile-ish hike.  Woo, exercise. :-|

I am planning on doing pulled pork for the fourth, so I'll have to pick a pork butt up tomorrow. That will by default include the disappointment I feel every time I buy pork butt, since Hawaii can't seem to be bothered to sell a whole pork butt, but only ones that have been sliced.  Pork. Butt.

Thursday: Yes, yes, I know,

but the doctor's office I went to is reasonably close to Wendy's, and it's been a long time since I've been there. Dipping the fries in a frosty is one of the best tastes ever. The combination of the sweet and salty is delicious.

Wednesday: lazy

Since I was working until 7ish trying to figure out problems with the dark model, I decided I was going to be lazy and just get tacos on the way home. The fact that my back has hurt since yesterday due to coughing was part of the decision as well.

I figure I should be able to make something tomorrow after my doctor appointment, so I can try to get back on the menu plan then.

Tuesday: sleepy sleepy

Nothing here today, because I got home, took a two hour nap, and then made a bowl of soup and had that instead. I think my cold is making an attempt at a flanking maneuver into my left ear.  That means I probably need to buy more drugs tomorrow.

Drugs are the artillery of the Verdun that is having a cold.

Monday: needs more garlic

Sunday: Including bowling

A while ago, groupon sent an offer for La Tour Cafe. Unfortunately, like all the other groupon offers, it was largely useless (like $10 for a $20 coupon, only good on one visit, only good certain days I think), but the menu did look interesting.  Since I'm still somewhat sick with this stupid cold, I figured it would be good to go and have some soup.  I also got the turkey and sundried tomato panini (with provolone and surprise spinach). I tried to substitute the salad for the soup, but that's apparently not allowed. Odd.

The sandwich was good, as was the soup, and reminded me of a Panera, if the food was made by people who actually cared about making the food taste good.  The tomatoes were nicely ripe and flavorful on the salad as well.  My only complaint would be that the onions didn't taste like they'd been carmelized completely before being added to the soup.  More like they were softened, and then added to a soup base and allowed to soak up the flavor of that.

All the reviews talked about their macaroons, so I figured I'd get one to try it.  This was the strawberry/black currant. Strawberry cakes with strawberry creme between, with a hidden spot of black currant jam inside.  It was good, and made a nice end to the meal.

My major complaint is that this place is located inside a giant ex-warehouse, and the only parking is around the perimeter.  It's one of those places where you just have to creep around and stalk someone to get a spot.  

I then ran some errands, and eventually made my way over to bowling:

Where I got to try out my new shoes!  It is significantly better to bowl in your own shoes than to rent them and be creeped out by that fact.  Unfortunately, my continued illness seemed to distract me, so I didn't do as well this week.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Game 1	x 17	7 0 24	3 5 32	x 51	9 0 60	5 2 67	7 / 86	9 0 95	7 0 102	9 0   111
Game 2	9 0 9	1 8 18	8 / 36	8 1 45	8 1 54	4 / 67	3 6 76	0 4 80	3 / 99	9 / 9  118
Game 3	x 18	8 0 26	8 / 41	5 0 46	3 / 62	6 / 81	9 0 90	9 / 110	x 130	7 / 9  149
Game 4	1 1 2	6 / 21	9 / 40	9 0 49	9 / 67	8 1 76	7 2 85	9 0 94	6 / 111	7 2   120

Game 4, frame 1 was pretty much fucked up by a team of little league kids who were randomly shouting and screaming to try to get the girl in their group (who looked like "older sister") to mess up.  Stupid kids.

Afterwards I got ice cream for dinner, because I'm lazy. Mmm...macadamia nut and coconut ... something ice creams...

It's possible I went overboard with the berries

Menu planning: week 2

I overslept again (well, I woke up, I just didn't bother getting out of bed), so I missed the farmer's market again. Maybe if I feel super motivated tomorrow, I'll try to go to the one in Mililani. Basing the week off of my trip to WF instead:

• Saturday: Salad of some sort, then sorbet and berries.
• Sunday: I'm thinking I'm going to try to do this garlic steak, with a grilled romaine salad and roasted potatoes.
• Monday: I haven't fully sorted this one out, but I bought another steak, so I'll come up with something for it.
• Tuesday: I'm going to try the spicy Italian sausages in tomato sauce that I got too sick to make last week.
• Wednesday: Leftovers
• Thursday: Do something with fish (which I didn't buy because this is nearly a week away)
• Friday: Probably the fish again.

This doesn't seem like a really firmly established menu plan, but it seems like having some plan and changing it as I go is better than trying to make it up each day as I go along.

The Counter

I figured it was probably the better idea to eat lunch before going shopping for groceries, so I tried out The Counter which is conveniently located next to Whole Foods.  It's a build-a-burger kind of place, so I looked over the options and built this:

Third pound beef burger with gruyere, grilled onions, "organic mixed greens," scallions, bacon, with a side of a sun-dried tomato sauce. I wasn't terribly impressed with the end result.  The burger was cooked to medium, and had a nice bright pink color inside.  However, it was remarkably dry, with basically no juice at all.  The grilled onions overpowered everything, and I ended up removing most of them. The cheese and thin sliced bacon was pretty much lost in the mix. I probably won't come back for the burger anytime soon.

They do have good sides.  The "fifty-fifty" allows you to split between fries and onion strings.  I went with the added parmesan fry modification, which was a good choice.  The onion strings were nicely done, and I may come back just to get an order of them in the future.  Splitting them with some regular cheddar cheese fries would be a good late night snack.

Well, that is, if the place didn't close at 10pm on the weekend. :-/

friday: leftover chili

I kind of deviated from the original menu, largely due to the fact that yesterday I woke up with a bad cough again, and progressively got worse as the day went on. Although I was able to get some stuff done at work, I left early, making a side trip by Long's to pick up an assortment of sickness fighting tools (soup, juice, cough syrup, chocolate).

So instead of making something yesterday, I just had a bowl of soup, and then went to bed. I'll try the sausages next week.

I did have the chili out defrosting, so after spending today sleeping and coughing and sleeping some more, I made that for dinner. I didn't really have any interest in making cornbread to go with it, so I just finished off the tortillas from Taco Monday and Taco Tuesday.

I'm going to try to get to the farmer's market tomorrow morning, since I expect I'll feel better then. Large quantities of juice and sleep does seem to have been an effective treatment.

wednesday: macadamia crusted mahi mahi

I took the leftover mahi mahi from yesterday, dipped it in an eggwash, and then into some bashed up macadamia nuts (plus a bit of salt and pepper). In addition, I made a quick peach chutney since my peaches are starting to look a bit mopey. It was pretty simple: warm up dried ancho flakes in some oil, add a bit of ginger and a dash of curry powder. Once it smells good, dump diced peaches and a bit of sugar, and let it cook down into a paste. It added a nice sweet and spicy balance to the toasty fatty coating on the fish.

Also mashed potatoes and asparagus (which I've almost finished!).

tuesday: fish tacos

I picked up some mahi-mahi from whole foods, and cut one piece in half, and after sprinkling it with taco seasoning, seared it over high heat while I broiled some asparagus. Add some of the salsa and guacamole I made yesterday, and sprinkle over a bit of cheese, and today's tacos were far better than yesterday's.

Monday: chicken tacos

I thought that making salsa and guacamole would be an easy thing. I was totally mistaken. My avocado was way too hard to mush, so it basically just ended up splitting up into tiny cubes. I added a jalepeno as well, but the guacamole still has basically no flavor. :-/ It has a bit of a creamy texture, but I was hoping for it to be much better. The salsa isn't bad, but it's needs a bit more salt. I kind of feel like it might need a bit more as well.

The tacos are fine, mostly because it's easy to make taco guts. Maybe after letting the flavors blend a bit better will enhance the salsa and guacamole. I did put a bit of a quick chipotle sauce (chipotle/adobo + tomato paste + garlic and some water to make it a sauce and not a paste) on the tacos, and that helped them too.

Tomorrow will be try two on these, and I won't have to spend so much time making it.

Food planning

Monday: chicken tacos, with homemade salsa and maybe homemade guacamole. Asparagus, if I can figure out a way to make it fit. Maybe roast it quickly, and then mix with a chipotle sauce?

Tuesday: fish tacos, using leftovers from previous night.

Wednesday: Spicy italian sausage in quick tomato sauce with miscellaneous pasta. Asparagus (because I have a big bunch of it).

Thursday: Leftovers.

Friday: TBD. I have leftover chili in my freezer that I've been craving for awhile. Maybe make up some cornbread and finish that off?

addendum: I really want brownies, so I think those are going to happen this week too. Maybe on friday as an end-of-week thing.

Bowling: week two

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Game 1	8 0 9	0 7 15	6 3 24	9 / 33	0 / 49	6 / 68	9 0 77	6 / 97	x 125	x 8 0 143
Game 2	8 / 18	8 0 26	7 1 34	6 / 52	8 0 60	7 2 69	1 2 83	8 0 91	6 2 99	x 7 0 116
Game 3	0 9 9	9 / 28	9 0 37	9 0 46	8 0 54	6 1 61	0 7 68	8 1 77	7 0 84	x 7 1 102

It was much busier this week than last week. I assume the three day weekend last week is the reason. Only three games this week because I pulled a muscle during game two, and it just hurt worse and worse during game three.

Yes, I am just stealing all of Julie's dinner ideas

yet again, indigo gets screwed

bowling

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Game 1	5 4 9	x 28	9 0 37	1 / 53	6 0 59	9 / 73	4 1 78	6 / 98	x 115	7 0 122
Game 2	x 19	8 1 28	9 0 37	7 / 55	8 1 64	5 3 72	7 0 79	9 / 97	6 0 105	7 / 6 121
Game 3	8 / 20	x 39	7 2 48	6 2 56	x 76	8 / 94	8 1 103	8 0 111	7 1 119	6 2 127
Game 4	x 29	x 48	9 0 57	7 1 65	7 2 74	7 / 93	9 / 110	7 1 118	9 / 133	5 3 141

The picture is from game 4, frame 7. The final pin fell over immediately after being reset. Oops.

LOL

I bet someone feels dumb.

"I would like to opt out"

Just went through security at BOS. I loaded up the bin, and chatted a bit with the guy asking about belts and watches.

"Laptop?" He asked.

"Yeah, but it's a flippy bag," I replied as I unzipped the split to lay it flat.

"Oh, I see. Nice job sticking your belt in your coat pocket, keeps it all together."

"Yep."

"Ok, right through here."

"I'd like to opt out, please."

I could see him get confused. He looked at the older guy standing next to the magnetometer.

"Sure, right through here," old guy said after a few seconds.  I walk through, nothing happens, so I keep going, looking around for the designated TSA gropemaster.

Nothing.

I walk up to the output of the bag scanner, and start accumulating my belongings.  I keep expecting someone to object.

No one does.

Hooray for the most theatrical of security theaters.  There's a big expensive box that everyone has to go through, unless you don't want to, in which case you can pretty much just ignore it all.

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too long for twitter

I'm watching an episode of Rachael Ray's "Week in a Day," and she's making pot pies. That caused me to look up other recipes online, and I've come to the conclusion that no one makes them the way I do.

The fillings are basically the same, but I don't use a big dish with just a single crust. I always pie crust in the bottom of a big muffin pan (the muffins are big, not the pan), par-bake them until browning and crispy, then fill and top with another layer of crust. After baking, it's nice because you can (if you're lucky and greased it well) just pop out individual pies that are completely encased in tasty crust.

However, I can find no recipes online that do anything like this. It just seems like a far better idea than floating a crust on a sea of stew.

Lord of the Rings Livetweets

Wait...LotR is 12 hours, not 9, isn't it? Oops. Should have started earlier.
13 hours ago via mbpidgin

Disk 2! Yeah, this is definitely twelve hours and not nine.
11 hours ago via mbpidgin

The Mines of Moria are less suspenseful when the sun is shining so bright.
10 hours ago via mbpidgin

YOU SHALL NOT PASS! #lotr #marathon
10 hours ago via mbpidgin

Disk 3! Rated PG-13 for Epic Battle Sequences!
9 hours ago via mbpidgin

I've apparently decided that a BLT is the correct thing to eat while watching The Two Towers.
8 hours ago via mbpidgin

Potatoes! Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew! #lotr
6 hours ago via mbpidgin

Disk 4! #lotr
6 hours ago via mbpidgin

It's also fun to play "find Peter Jackson's kids" as I watch these movies. #lotr
5 hours ago via mbpidgin

I always like it when "ent that's on fire" runs up to put himself out after they break the dam holding back the Isen. #lotr
5 hours ago via mbpidgin

Putting the entire fan list at the end of all three special edition movies is a bit silly. #lotr
4 hours ago via mbpidgin

It's unfortunate that the dynamic range in these movies isn't really appropriate for living in an apartment. #lotr
3 hours ago via mbpidgin

GROND! GROND! GROND! GROND! GROND! Apparently that's the end of disk 5 as well. #lotr
2 hours ago via mbpidgin

Ohs noes! Corsairs! (Disk 6.) #lotr
2 hours ago via mbpidgin

Wait...was Aragorn's plan just to sit on the beach and hijack some ships when they came by? That's kind of...irresponsible. #lotr
2 hours ago via web

The Ride of the Rohirrim is another favorite. #lotr
1 hour ago via mbpidgin

This isn't going to be over by 3, is it? Oh well, I'll keep that in mind for next time. Thirteen hours. #lotr
1 hour ago via mbpidgin

Oops! Your head popped off! How did that happen? Man, that probably hurts! #lotr
1 hour ago via mbpidgin

With the bloody hand? Ick. #lotr
57 minutes ago via mbpidgin

I'M IN UR MORDOR, SAVIN MAI HOBBITSSES! #whyeaglesdon'ttweet #lotr
52 minutes ago via mbpidgin

Closing credits. I remember watching these after the midnight showing. While everyone else tried to escape the post-credit monsters. #lotr
28 minutes ago via web

I just now noticed that the Fan Club credits after the regular credits includes the entire cast. #lotr
12 minutes ago via mbpidgin

And the final answer is "pretty close to 13 hours." At least it's not morning like it was last time I did this. #lotr
9 minutes ago via mbpidgin

super bowl ad

my favorite

puppy bowl!

[Picture to be added later]

I remember in grad school getting together for chili and the super bowl.  I don't really care about football, but since Animal Planet has started showing the Puppy Bowl, I have something else to watch instead.  I've never actually made chili before, but I figured it couldn't be that difficult.  I used this as my basis, and made some changes (no beans, because beans are gross). My recipe:

• 1 lb beef stew meat
• 1 lb ground beef
• 2 28oz cans tomatoes
• 2 slices bacon.
• 1 onion
• garlic
• 2 jalepenos 
• 3 ancho chiles
• cumin/coriander/pepper/smoked paprika/regular paprika/chili powder/cayenne
• anchovy/soy sauce/worchestershire sauce/1oz dark chocolate
• 1 can beef broth
• 1 can tomato paste
• some wine

I first started on the sauce. After quickly roasting the chiles and the whole spices, I moved them to the food processor and ground them up. The anchovy was fried in some olive oil until it dissolved, and then 1/3 of the can of broth, 1 tbs tomato paste, and the rest of the umami ingredients went in as well.  The spices and chiles were added, and whisked to be reasonably smooth.

The meat was browned separately, and then removed from the pan. The bacon was diced up and added to the pan to render out the fat.  This was used to cook the onion and garlic. The pan was deglazed with the wine, and then the meat added back in, and the finished sauce mixed in.  The tomatoes were added in next, along with the remaining broth and tomato paste. One of the jalepenos was sent through the food processor, and the other left in two pieces, as I wasn't sure how hot it was going to get.

I let it cook for about two-three hours, making cornbread in my cast iron pan during the last half hour. This would have been much easier had my stick blender hadn't been lost in the move, as that would have made smoothing the sauce a far quicker task.  I also would somewhat like to blend a batch of the chili a bit more to use on chili dogs and whatnot.

I also will need to adjust the spices for the next time I make this.  The heat was fairly mild, only hitting in the back of the throat.  I think the solution will be to add a few more jalepenos, possibly roasting one before adding it.

Nautipocalypse

An apocalypse that starts in the ocean.

The Great Denver Adventure

Today's original plan involved @gakisama and me flying back to Honolulu from Austin. However, the flight out of Austin was delayed ten minutes, and since the plane was a tiny Canadair thing, we had to gate check our suitcases. By the time we'd landed, I had received an email that we had been auto-rebooked onto flights tomorrow.

That wasn't a great solution, so I stopped at the first kiosk I could see.  That told me to pick up the service phone, which connected me to someone who told me to go to gate b43 to get the new tickets.  That was the gate for the original flight out of denver.  When we arrived there, we discovered that we'd missed boarding by just a few minutes. So much for listening to email updates.

The gate agent then checked if we could get home, and put us on standby for a flight to Los Angeles that we might be able to connect through to get home.  We tried that, but due to the bizarre way United handles upgrades and standby, multiple people on the same reservation do not have the same priority.  That seems completely counterintuitive.  For both flights to and from Austin, I was asked if I wanted the first class upgrade if @gakisama wouldn't get one. Similarly, I was asked if I wanted the standby seat to LAX without @gakisama. Weird.

We attempted to catch the next standby to Los Angeles (possibly connecting to Lihue), but somehow didn't make the list. I checked if Kayak could find anyway to get home today, only to find that no amount of money could make a connection from DEN to HNL.

I told @gakisama that we were pretty much stuck, and she suggested waiting in the customer service line to see if we could get dinner or maybe even a hotel for the night.  I had little hope, but gave it a shot.  It took awhile but a "Mrs. L. Rodriguez":

- tried unsuccessfully to find us a connection tonight again
- checked us in for the flight tomorrow
- made sure we remained on the ugrade list for those flights
- gave us $30 in food vouchers
- $300 in travel vouchers for the future
- booked us a fully paid room at the rather nice Renaissance Denver, which has a free shuttle to and from the airport.

We took the shuttle, checked in, had a decent italian meal at the hotel, followed by me passing out in bed instead of catching Castle.

The attached picture is of a print in the bathroom here. I suspect it represents "WTF am I doing in Denver, and WTF am I going to do?"

Dinner?

Calamari?

Eighth floor?

Free fucking hot cider?

Room?

Elevators?

Driving?

living in the middle of the ocean is weird

OMGWTFBBQ!

hrm

I went to look up how much I hate Hush, and remembered that I wanted them to make Lego Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The Video Game. Then I remembered that they are making that game.


but only (at a quality that I care to play) for systems I don't own.

Maybe I should look into buying a PS3.

ok, wtf?

Aren't rice krispy treats easy enough that kids can make them? Like 7 month old kids? Who exactly is so lazy they need to buy premade sheets of them?

Computing!

I've been down to just my laptop and a single ancient box since moving to Hawaii, due to the careful packing skills of my movers.  I finally bought a replacement, and have been having that old-school feeling of trying to get disparate parts working together.  Unfortunately, I fly out to Baltimore for a week on Wednesday, so I'm making this list partially as a to-do list for when I return.

Current status:

• HDMI display works to my television.  Unfortunately, the TV refuses to believe there is a computer attached, and so refuses to allow access to the overscan disabling functions.  What this means is that there's a fairly large border that the computer thinks is visible, but isn't.
• Surprisingly enough, HDMI sound worked with mplayer with only minimal tweaking.  This is a good sign.
• Wireless now works fine, allowing this computer to function as my wireless router.  I've enabled WPA, since I don't feel like doing MAC address filtering and running kittenwar net.  I am having some throughput issues, where the network stalls every ten seconds or so.  I suspect interference from neighbors, but that's a bit tricky to diagnose.
• mythtv sees the database, and looks like it should be functional with an evening of tweaking, once I get that overscan issue fixed.
• The IR remote I got apparently works randomly with mplayer.  I suspect it's a config issue.  I'm hoping that I can simply use the receiver, and train my universal remote to send the key codes.  
• My external USB drives live too high on the shelf to plug into the new computer.  I can probably solve this by just buying a few 2m cables.
• I don't have a video capture card yet, so it won't be a DVR quite yet, but that's the next project, once I get the rest of the system up and running.

Columbus day!

Between all the news stories, and this comic, I felt lie I should try myself.  Not bad, but they came out way too hot to eat immediately, and then got soggy.  They're also nearly impossible to eat without shooting sauce all over.


It just goes to show that not all kids shows are exclusively for kids.


I used mostly leftover stuff, and added some provolone to add some extra flavor.  It kind of seems to me that spaghetti taquitos would work a bit better, but that's not traditional.

Hey, I do too!

surprise hug!

Dichotomy

King my ass

You'd think a place with king in its name would be a better place to eat. Required valet parking, screwed up orders, super greasy food, poor service from random employees: none of these make "king" level dining.

Of course, maybe lobsters just don't care. They are ocean bugs.

Sent via DROID on Verizon Wireless

When life gives you 5 hours of fucking jetlag

You make breakfast.

I made bacon, waffles with syrup and peanut butter, yogurt, oj, and coffee. I guess that kind of makes up for waking up at 4am.

Also: Thank you autocorrect for changing "fucking" into "ducking."

I took 1002 pictures

That's only counting my camera, and not what I took with my cell phone.  It's going to take a bit more than I thought to put together some blog posts.

Heathrow "Giraffe"

I can kind of understand that you don't serve anything other than breakfast until 11AM BST. It's not like you're in a giant international airport that flies to more countries than most people are aware of. In any case, those people are probably on the same schedule anyway, right?

But, seriously, Heathrow Giraffe, you dare call those things pancakes? Pancakes are light and fluffy, with a faint sweetness that makes you happy. Children can make them, it shouldn't be that hard. Not hard, unlike your so-called pancakes.

I'm still unclear what you did to those blueberries, but just as a side note, we put them inside the cakes in the US. Keeps the little bastards from rolling everywhere. As a similar presentation issue, maybe the single sausage on an otherwise empty plate could be dressed up with something? Maybe just use a plate that matches the size of the food you place on top?

Also, may I complement you on finding the pulpiest glass of juice ever? I've eaten actual oranges that were more fluid.

Finally, I would like to point out that if your waitresses have horrible breath, perhaps they could be instructed to not speak in the direction of the customers? Or, frankly, anyone with a functioning nose.

My feet hurt

Blue is walking, Red is the underground I took (assuming I got the stations correct).  The green star is vaguely where the hotel I'm staying in is located.

Last Day in Belfast

I'm really tired, so I'm going to cheat this on this one, and suggest that I'll have really cool pictures tomorrow or the next day from the bus tour of Belfast I took today.  I also need to do a food post about all the stuff I've eaten here.  The UK kind of gets an unfair shake on food, but I like lamb, so I might be biased.

I also like proper cider, and that's incredibly easy to find here, unlike the apple-free-zone of Hawaii.

Belfast!

Just a few pictures from Belfast.  I've been largely stuck at the conference, and so I haven't been taking too many.  I figure I'll catch up in London.

A statue of Lord Kelvin.  Yes, that Kelvin.

The "Palm House," a greenhouse in the park. I think it's been closed everytime I walk past.

Memorial angel statue at the QUB entrance.

City Hall, where we met the Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Galileo. He sits in the entryway you take to get to the great hall.

The tiny, tiny shower  have to work with. Stupid tiny shower.

Really?

The original drive in my ancient pentium 200 computer has been running fine for about 13 years now (it just had a birthday last week).  I was poking around at the SMART attributes, and discovered the following:


# smartctl -T permissive --all /dev/hda
smartctl version 5.38 [i686-pc-linux-gnu] Copyright (C) 2002-8 Bruce Allen
Home page is http://smartmontools.sourceforge.net/


=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Device Model:     ST32120A
Serial Number:    XJ085025
Firmware Version: 0.34
User Capacity:    2,111,864,832 bytes
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   2
ATA Standard is:  Not recognized. Minor revision code: 0xffff
Local Time is:    Tue Aug 24 18:11:21 2010 HST
SMART is only available in ATA Version 3 Revision 3 or greater.
We will try to proceed in spite of this.
SMART support is: Ambiguous - ATA IDENTIFY DEVICE words 85-87 don't show if SMART is enabled.
                  Checking to be sure by trying SMART RETURN STATUS command.
SMART support is: Enabled


=== START OF READ SMART DATA SECTION ===
SMART overall-health self-assessment test result: PASSED


General SMART Values:
Offline data collection status:  (0x00) Offline data collection activity
                                        was never started.
                                        Auto Offline Data Collection: Disabled.
Total time to complete Offline 
data collection:                 (   0) seconds.
Offline data collection
capabilities:                    (0x03) SMART execute Offline immediate.
                                        Auto Offline data collection on/off support.
                                        Suspend Offline collection upon new
                                        command.
                                        No Offline surface scan supported.
                                        No Self-test supported.
                                        No Conveyance Self-test supported.
                                        No Selective Self-test supported.
SMART capabilities:            (0x0002) Does not save SMART data before
                                        entering power-saving mode.
                                        Supports SMART auto save timer.
Error logging capability:        (0x00) Error logging NOT supported.
                                        No General Purpose Logging support.


SMART Attributes Data Structure revision number: 5
Vendor Specific SMART Attributes with Thresholds:
ID# ATTRIBUTE_NAME          FLAG     VALUE WORST THRESH TYPE      UPDATED  WHEN_FAILED RAW_VALUE
  1 Raw_Read_Error_Rate     0x000a   086   081   000    Old_age   Always       -       147595676
  3 Spin_Up_Time            0x0006   096   096   000    Old_age   Always       -       4
  4 Start_Stop_Count        0x0013   100   100   020    Pre-fail  Always       -       672
  5 Reallocated_Sector_Ct   0x0013   100   100   036    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
  7 Seek_Error_Rate         0x000b   047   037   030    Pre-fail  Always       -       2804648590616
 10 Spin_Retry_Count        0x0013   100   100   097    Pre-fail  Always       -       0
 12 Power_Cycle_Count       0x0013   100   100   020    Pre-fail  Always       -       20


Warning: device does not support Error Logging
Error SMART Error Log Read failed: Input/output error
Smartctl: SMART Error Log Read Failed
Warning: device does not support Self Test Logging
Error SMART Error Self-Test Log Read failed: Input/output error
Smartctl: SMART Self Test Log Read Failed
Device does not support Selective Self Tests/Logging

Not only has it been running fine for 13 years, it really isn't even doing that badly.  The Seek_Error_Rate is a touch high, but it's still above threshold.  I'm also somewhat surprised that Power_Cycle_Count is 20. Really? I've only shut down the computer 20 times? 

We're Not 100% Satisfied Unless You Are. Let us Know What You Think.

1. Overall, how likely is it that you would recommend  Verizon Wireless to a friend or colleague?
 8


2. Please tell us why you chose this rating or what we can do to improve our service:

The coverage doesn't suck, and I wouldn't have to worry about using minutes to talk to this hypothetical "friend or colleague."

One improvement would be to stop putting needlessly expensive barriers on things. For example, tethering should be free, provided the data transferred isn't excessive. It seems to me that all data going through the phone should be treated equally. What makes a youtube byte more precious if it is forwarded to a laptop screen instead of displayed directly on the cellphone screen? Barring this, it would also be nice to have as a simple monthly add on.  If I travel one month a year, it would useful to have tethering for that, but it is silly to pay month after month for something I usually don't need.

Similarly, the pricing on text messages is obviously too high.   It seems doubly so when you note that both sender and recipient of the message pay, putting the price of a single text message at $0.40.  If this is a bandwidth limited issue (the SMS network cannot transfer more than X messages per minute, therefore pricing is used to prevent the system from being overwhelmed), then why are text message rates not time dependent?  Users have had on- and off-peak rates for decades for telephone service.  It stands to reason that a similar system would be widely accepted for text messaging as well.

3.Please tell us your name:

Thank you. A manager may call you, on your contact number or Verizon Wireless phone, to

better understand your feedback so that we can improve our service.

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Frogger

Game over. :-/
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Huh

Assuming this isn't a photoshop like the back to the future thing was, things are a bit depressing. Will claims it was 15 years ago that this first aired.  That fits reasonably well with my memory of heading back to my bedroom to watch Simpson's while my parents watched some boring old-people show instead.

Fifteen years, huh?

Think back, and remember what you were doing, and how many worries you didn't have then that you do have now.

Now, don't you feel old, too?

Because when Chewbacca needs to fight Nazis

he saddles up the War-Squirrels.

What I'm talking about

In addition to the freecreditreport.com crap (which at least has a quick "oh yeah, we're totally going to enroll you in some dumb credit watch service" disclaimer at the end), tonight's Rachel Maddow had an ad for this useless shit. Magic Energy Bracelets. Plus, it's a nice classy looking operation, where the product homepage has a place to type in your credit card information and order without all that "clicking" and "shopping cart" hassle.

I would kind of hope that people watching this show would know better than to believe that a stupid loop of plastic will magically cure their problems.

Then again, I bet I could spray paint some zip ties silver.

mecha-crab!

Mufi singing

He's the mayor of honolulu.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

5 < 1

Also: 4 < 0 and 4 < 1. Steve Jobs and math are friends.

This looks like an alligator

Despite being the foot to my box fan.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry