Because:
This is a general administrative reminder that purchases made through Amazon links on Whipped Cream Difficulties, such as this one
Shocked, shocked I am to learn that The Biggest Loser may indulge in questionable practices. I am equally shocked to learn that a charity collecting money for the homeless may be a scam.
I am delighted to find out that the CIA Family Advisory Board has published a second cookbook, More Spies, Black Ties, and Mango Pies. I own a copy of the original 1997 cookbook
I did not know Julie “Julie and Julia
Edited to add: On the “Art, damn it, art!” front: “Train” in vain.
(Since I got the song stuck in your head, here’s a live Clash video. And here’s a live Annie Lennox version. And here’s a not bad Manic Street Preachers cover.)
Antonia Frasier’s Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot
Edited to add: Speaking of revolt against established government, I was totally unaware that College Station voted out traffic enforcement cameras until I read about it in…the Washington Post?
You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m something of a connoisseur of failure. This leads me in many directions, including savoring Broadway flops. (And that, in turn, reminds me that I need to replace my copy of Not Since Carrie
I also wanted to note the LAT obit for controversial rocket scientist Qian Xuesen. Xuesen is a prominent figure in George Pendle’s fascinating biography of fellow rocket scientist and genuine freaking weirdo Jack Parsons, Strange Angel
The NYT has an interesting article about Thomas Keller (of French Laundry fame) and how he’s changed after the death of his father.
This has been linked elsewhere, but I wanted to throw this up mostly for Andrew: local coverage of the SF Bay Bridge closure.
I’ve also been meaning to note the unfortunate incident on I-40, mostly because I’ve been somewhat baffled by it; however, the linked article helps make a little more sense of it. It looks like the slide is in an area that’s not easily accessible to the heavy equipment needed to remove the rocks; it also looks like NCDOT is going to want to spend some time stabilizing the slope, and then you’ve got to make sure the road bed is in good shape…
Tim Page has been popping up a lot recently as I make my rounds; first (by way of Jimbo) on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, then in an online chat at the WP. For those who are unfamiliar with Mr. Page, he’s a former classical music critic at the WP (and winner of the Pulitzer for criticism in 1997) who briefly became notorious for going off on Marion Barry’s aides after they kept spamming him. (“Must we hear about it every time this crack addict attempts to rehabilitate himself with some new and typically half-witted political grandstanding? “)
Page has a new book out, Parallel Play
(Before anyone asks: I have Look Me in the Eye
Written a long time ago (back when the book was first released in hardcover). Reposted because I’m still rather fond of the book, and of the review.
Title: Seasons in Hell: With Billy Martin, Whitey Herzog and “The Worst Baseball Team in History”-The 1973-1975 Texas Rangers
Author: Mike Shropshire
Publisher: Donald I. Fine/Penguin
ISBN: 1-55611-495-8
Price: $23.95
I hate baseball.
Actually, that’s not completely fair. I loathe baseball with the same level of intensity that I loathe whole tomatoes, Sarah and James Brady and their merry little gun-banning bund, and the various infestations of Star Trek. I look forward to the day (may it come soon) when I can piss on the metaphorical grave of the soon-to-be-ex Houston Astros: indeed, I look forward to the day when organized baseball in this country finally collapses under the accumulated weight of its own sheer stupidity.
In short, I am not a baseball fan.
I stumbled across this article at ESPN totally by accident, and it brings back fond memories. Not as much of UT football, but of the Houston Oilers of the late 70’s. (“Can you hear the blocking, the rambling and the roar? As he glides along the sidelines, by the hashmarks in the score…” Yes, I remember the lyrics somewhat differently.) But even if you were not an Oiler or UT fan, you have to admit Earl Campbell put a heck of a hit on Michael Downs.
This has been well covered elsewhere, but I’m sad to see Gourmet is closing. They’ve had a long tradition of highly literary food writing; check out the Endless Feasts
The problem is, I don’t think there’s a market any more for literary food writing. Cooks Illustrated is a better cooking magazine (though that tweedy little bow-tied jackass gets on my nerves), but sometimes I want a deeper consideration of food, along the lines of Wallace (even though I disagee with much of that essay) or Laura Shapiro.
And as other people pointed out; they killed Gourmet, and kept Your Prom?
(Edited to add: the TLB-TJ comments in the NYT.)
The good folks at Dogfish Head decided they wanted to brew a batch of chicha, the traditional corn beer of some parts of Latin and South America.
Now, if you’ve read Tim Cahill, you probably know that part of the chicha fermentation process is for the village women to chew up the corn and spit it into the vessels the chicha ferments in. (If you haven’t read Tim Cahill
Being dedicated craft brewers, the good folks at Dogfish Head wanted to follow the process exactly. There’s just one small problem with that; you have to chew up a heck of a lot of corn to brew a reasonably sized batch of chicha.
“The 20 pounds that we were hoping for was going to go into a five-barrel batch,” Mr. Calagione said. “If we went to production, the smallest tank would be 200 barrels.” He did the math. “We’d need 40 times this much. We would have to chew 800 pounds of this.”
The Austin American-Statesman has a wonderful profile of UT geology professor Bill Muehlberger, the man who has been teaching geology to NASA astronauts since 1964.
…he believes it’s important for humankind to return to the moon — and not just to finish the work begun at the old landing sites.
“I think it would be more valuable to go to new places,” he says. “One of my favorites is the Copernicus Crater. You could land in the bottom of it and be within a mile of the central uplift, which brings you stuff in from deeper in the moon. Or you could go over a mile in the other direction, to stuff that fell back out of the crater during the impact, and get a 3-D sampling. You’d be landing on glass, on the melt rock that flowed in during the impact. Hey. We could keep going forever … “
I’m fascinated by geology, but, sadly, not very good at it. That hasn’t stopped me from reading John McPhee’s and Simon Winchester’s books, though. In that vein, I’d like to recommend Donald Beattie’s great book, Taking Science to the Moon
I’ve generally been pleased with the quality of the No Starch books I’ve picked up. And they’ve been a constant and friendly presence at DEFCON for as long as I’ve been going.
What pushed me over the edge, though, is that I ordered some books on Saturday. They were at my PO Box by Wednesday, shipped priority mail, and No Starch didn’t charge me anything over actual cost for the shipping.
No Starch is also running a 30% off sale through August 31st; enter voucher code 100896985 at checkout.
I haven’t been to NYC since Jesus was a corporal, but for some reason I enjoy reading the NYT food coverage. Retiring food critic Frank Bruni has a nice retrospective piece in which he answers questions like “What’s the best sushi?” (Answer: are you willing to drop $400 a person?) and “What’s the best steakhouse?” I would have liked to see more of his greatest hits, such as the classic review of Ninja, but you can’t have everything…
Speaking of the NYT, I have a new blog to watch: The NYTPicker. This looks like it could fill the void left by SmarterTimes and the late lamented J. J. Hunsecker’s Spy column. If they start referring to “bosomy dirty book writer Shirley Lord”, I am there, man.
I feel compelled to say something about Teddles, but I (and probably a dozen other people by now) have already used the “…unavailable for comment” trope. So I’m grudgingly linking to Michael Kelly’s “A Sober Look At Ted Kennedy“. I say grudgingly because the formatting and pagination of this version of the article is horrible. You’d be a lot better off finding and reading a copy of Kelly’s excellent posthumous collection Things Worth Fighting For: Collected Writings
By way of Radley Balko, we found an interesting Slate article; wine expert Michael Broadbent is suing author Benjamin Wallace for allegedly libeling Broadbent in his book, The Billionaire’s Vinegar
In other news, the Williamson County Attorney has decided that letting a waitress fondle your patrol rifle in the parking lot of a restaurant is not a crime. At least, not if you’re cops visiting from another county. Twin Peaks is right around the corner from work; I haven’t been there yet, but I’ve heard it described as “Hooters without the class”. (Personally, I would apply that description to Bone Daddy’s.) For once, I find myself agreeing with the Williamson County establishment; I couldn’t see what the criminal conduct was when this story first broke. Bad taste? Poor judgment? Sure. A crime? Not as long as she wasn’t pointing it at anyone or making threats.
Edited to add: Our friend James points us to a second article from MyWestTexas.com. According to this article, one of the five deputies was fired, three were suspended for three days without pay, and one was issued a letter of reprimand. Even better, this article includes a photo of the waitress and the patrol rifle.
Edited to add 2: Our great and good friend Commvault Bryan points out that The Smoking Gun is now on top of the story, complete with legal documents, a larger version of the photo, and the fascinating tidbit that the waitress uses the name “Bambi”. Seriously, “Bambi”. If I put that into a work of fiction, my editor would reject it as implausible.
Randall Lawrence Waterhouse
Current meatspace coordinates, hot from the GPS receiver card in my laptp:
27 degrees, 14.95 minutes N lattitude 143 degrees, 17.44 minutes E longitude
Nearest geographical feature: the Bonin Islands
—Neal Stephenson, Cryptonomicon
One of the projects that I’ve had cooking in the back of my mind is to implement something like Waterhouse’s signature block in Cryptonomicon. After all, I’ve reached a point in my life where I actually have GPS equipment and a computer that are small enough to use on an airplane. (Unlike Waterhouse, I tend to fly coach.)
There’s a couple of different parts to this project as I see it.
I’m stumped by the last part. Doing two million Haversine calculations seems like a time consuming operation; I suspect on a N800, the closest point would have changed substantially by the time the calculations finish.
Anyone have any good ideas? If I ever do write the script, I promise public acknowledgment (and public posting of the code).
