blog-o-matic

quick post while i'm thinking about it. andy and i went to number 9 park last week. the time before that was the best time i'd ever been there. i had the corn and black truffle "terrine" dish which turned out to be this interesting small rectangular plate with three or so gelatinous long rectangles ("prisms" would prob. be the nerdy correct geometrical term) spread out down the plate, drizzled with black truffle oil and shavings with some bits of real corn thrown in. tasty and one of the more entertaining dishes i've had in a while. i also had a very nice tortelloni with pea shoots and morels. mmm. andy had the lobster gnocchi. for dessert we had the rosewater creme brulee. note to self: avoid food with flowers in them. i always get them thinking they'll be kind of fun, and i just end up feeling like i've just accidentally swallowed a bottle of foot lotion from the body shop or something.

this time around i got fries (haha) and olives (what can i say? i felt like having it MY way). the olives were good, although they were drenched in olive oil which i know most people prob. like but which, as i told andy, i see as being like putting peanuts on a peanut butter sandwich or topping your doritos with cheese whiz. i like my olives unadorned. naked, if you will. haha. anyway, the fetuccini with chanterelles was disappointing. andy was also not so thrilled with his skate with lemon aioli (the special). speaking of the aioli, i also had lemon ailoi with my fries which is generally not a bad thing except this was like lemon FROSTING, which was not appetizing. and it took forever (as in i was more than 1/2way done eating my fries) for the waiter to bring me some ketchup. grr.

so all in all this gives number 9 park a batting average of about 1 in 4 for me, although andy points out that we've been sitting in the front, and next time we should try harder to sit at the bar so we can get both the dinner and the bar menus. although something that i still can't understand is why you can't have both menus wherever you sit. maybe winnie can explain this to me. and one more observation: the last two waiters we've had at number 9 park have both been extremely chirpy. is this the effect that they're consciously striving for? do they have pep talks before every evening, where they all stand in a circle and chant, "PEP! PEP! PEP! yeeeeeeaaaaaah, PEP!" i can only imagine. i know i'm not alone in having the firm belief that a good waiter should be able to pick up in the first minute of interaction whether or not his clientele want him to make annoying chit-chat. i = a misanthrope, so let me eat in peace, please. it wouldn't be so bad if they were more attentive, but i've found that as in most places there is no correlation between #9 park's waiters' annoyingness and their attentiveness. ah well.
posted by fwc | 8/31/2004 6:34 PM

i know i've raved to most people about opera already, but i had to post about the latest release. opera is by far the best web browser i've ever used, and this latest version's fixed the last problem it had which was that it was slow and would crash a little too often. this version is amazingly lightweight, possibly even lighter than internet explorer, stable, and the GUI is even sleeker and more customizable than before. why did i prefer it even when it was buggy? it has all the features that IE and netscape should have added years ago, inc. a great password manager, popup blocker, shortcuts for new blank window and new window that's a copy of the current one, open all bookmarks, and tabbed panes for each window (huge plus). i also love the smart page forward feature, which is great for reading through many pages of text or images, and the mouse gestures, which you can use as shortcuts for options like back and refresh. highly highly highly recommended. when was the last time internet explorer updated? it seems so archaic now. use this referrer link to give me a few cents.
posted by fwc | 8/27/2004 5:39 PM

way back when i was thinking about interviewing for microsoft (against my better judgement) i looked up some puzzles online. microsoft is famous (or infamous) for asking not only coding questions but also thinking questions (like "why are manhole covers round?") and puzzles. here's a site called www.techinterview.org that has some good ones if you're ever bored. some ones i liked:

• a man has a gold chain with 7 links. he needs the service of a laborer for 7 days at a fee of one gold link per day. however, each day of work needs to be paid for separately. in other words, the worker must be paid each day after working and if the laborer is ever overpaid he will quit with the extra money. also he will never allow himself to be owed a link.
  
  what is the fewest # of cuts to the chain to facilitate this arrangement and how does that guarantee payment?


• you die and the devil says he'll let you go to heaven if you beat him in a game. the devil sits you down at a round table. he gives himself and you a huge pile of quarters. he says "ok, we'll take turns putting quarters down, no overlapping allowed, and the quarters must rest on the table surface. the first guy who can't put a quarter down loses."
  
  how do you make sure you win?

posted by fwc | 8/25/2004 12:48 PM

haven't been much in the mood to post lately, probably b/c i've been a bit overwhelmed entertaining relatives from korea, worrying about my sister's wedding (this saturday!!), and stressing about moving. i'll be glad when this month's over.

on a lighter note, have i already raved about bookcrossing.com? basically they promote releasing books "into the wild" (for example, on the subway), but i've found it's a really great way to trade books i want to get rid of. you can check out the books i've registered or received here. among the so-so books i've read in the past couple of months:

she's come undone: mostly skimmed through the last 1/3. about what i expected, i.e. too chick-y for me, but had some interesting bits.

the last of the mohicans: this book was sooo slow. only got 1/2way through this one.

the waste land and other poems: another 1/2way-read book. mostly irritating. for every 100 lines of eliot's prohibitively obtuse poetry, only about 5 lines gave me a worthwhile revelation.

maus: a famous graphic novel about the treatment of jews during world war ii. didn't really add anything new to the already huge body of works about the subject.

i'm going to be getting the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe in a bookcrossing trade soon. thinking about rereading the whole series, which i don't think i've read since elementary school. we'll see how that goes.
posted by fwc | 8/16/2004 2:30 PM

was in new york this past weekend being a tour guide to my extended family. i did get a chance to see frozen, though, which was worthwhile. not mind-blowing, but it was definitely better than i am my own wife and probably the best play i've seen (or read) in the past five years, with the exception of one flea spare (oh, and private lives). and yes, swoosie kurtz was quite as good as people have said she was, although i didn't find byrne's performance to be that astounding.

ran across this place completely by coincidence that winnie and i have been before, called kalustyan's. it's this middle eastern store, and i got two things at their counter that i had last time: a fava bean dish with dill and a lentil/rice dish; both were solid. i noticed that they had a cafe a few doors down. apparently this is a recent addition (february of 2004) according to this article. didn't get a chance to check it out, but i'll definitely be keeping it in mind for next time i'm in ny.

also went to a couple of clubs. heaven was really really lame, and the roxy was okay, although the cover was ridiculous ($25). why is it so hard to find a club that plays good music? from now on i'm only clubbing in london and at boston's man ray. haha.
posted by fwc | 8/10/2004 9:36 AM

homestarrunner.com has just released peasant's quest, easily one of the coolest games i've played in a while. the outline is kind of a mix of zelda where you walk around (but without the fighting) and a text-based adventure game where you use commands like "get berries". the preview of the game is also on the site. there are some kind of tricky bits, but the best thing is it features a very strong bad-like sense of humor. i beat the game last night and feel like i've finally accomplished something with my life. ... or something.
posted by fwc | 8/4/2004 9:40 AM

this is the 2nd of the three mixes i've been working on. the third one won't be finished for a while, but that one's mostly indie and mostly downers. this one's a hodge-podge, but most of the tracks are upbeat/easy listening/both.

everybody to the limit
(mostly) upbeat mix
july 25, 2004

1 the jam . billy elliot (soundtrack) . town called malice
2 ben folds five . the truth about cats and dogs (soundtrack) . bad idea
3 future bible heroes . eternal youth . i'm a vampire
4 fannypack . so stylistic . hey mami
5 strong bad . www.homestarrunner.com . fhqwhgads
6 missy elliott . this is not a test . bomb intro/pass that dutch
7 the thrills . so much for the city . big sur
8 everything but the girl . idlewild . these early days
9 francis doughty . among trees . by lantern light
10 chris isaak . forever blue . somebody's crying
11 jim's big ego . y2k hooray (EP) . stay in love (2am rough mix)
12 gorillaz . g-sides . faust
13 mary j. blige . mary . all that i can say
14 neil diamond . best of neil diamond . cherry cherry
15 merlin . por la mondo . estis unu fojo
16 millie jackson (orig. exile) . 21 of the best . kiss you all over
17 the flashing lights . sweet release . been waiting
18 bob dylan . the freewheelin' bob dylan . girl from the north country
19 saint etienne (orig. neil young) . foxbase alpha . only love will break your heart
20 swing out sister . ultimate collection . somewhere in the world
21 stephen kellogg . lucky eleven . as good as it's been
22 bette midler . experience the divine . do you want to dance
23 jeff buckley . grace . last goodbye
posted by fwc | 7/26/2004 9:34 AM

photos from trip to new york a few weeks ago. the electric fish pic is from the wild lily tea room, a cute little tea place in chelsea (511 west 22nd, b/t 10th and 11th). i miss that fish. he was the best.
posted by fwc | 7/19/2004 9:32 AM

random links:



orisinal.com: this site has a huge number of really great flash games. although a lot of them are a bit slow, the concepts are all great, and the games include super cute (oftentimes animal) characters. the pic above is from the game where you stack pigs on top of each other. a great source of whimsical ways to waste time.

changedetection.com: keeps track of websites that don't update often. they'll check any page for you once a day and send you an email if it's been updated.

strong sad's blog: hasn't updated in a while, but i like that it exists.
posted by fwc | 7/17/2004 11:03 AM

the three shows i saw this weekend in NY were about what i thought they would be. here's a quick run-down:

assassins: a great play but mostly average production. the hardest task is to make the assassins human instead of just loonies, and the director didn't pull it off. but overall it was a competent, if not stellar, production.

i am my own wife: a fascinating character, but the author chose to gloss over the details instead of delve. the story was fairly standard, and it hits its easy shots (as everything with nazis tends to do). the acting wasn't particularly impressive.

the frogs: actually the most interesting of the three things i saw. a curio in the sondheim canon (and the musical theater canon also). stroman's direction was as glib and boring as i expected. lane's writing was subpar and had a tendency to become maudlin, but he did manage to get in a few good belly laugh-inducing cracks. i was actually surprised at the quality of sondheim's new songs, which were in general better than most of the work he's done lately. the acting was average. all in all the work is still as problematic as ever and will need at least another rewriting to make it work. i'll get the CD when it comes out, though.

non-theater events this week:
spidey 2: better than X2. good emotions, although a bit more trite at times than it needed to be, and good action.

went to the museum of natural history to catch the exhibit on frogs. the exhibit was smaller than i thought it would be and less interesting, but maybe i've been spoiled by david attenborough's great video on amphibians that was part of his life on earth series.

also went to the guggenheim. the brancusi exhibit got off to a good start, but then got a bit dull. the accompanying exhibit featuring similiarly minimalist artwork was okay. there was a huge photography exhibit on hands that was annoying. the section of the permanent gallery was refreshing, though. in particular some of the picassos that i didn't know were great.

best meal in ny was at craftbar w/ tim and winnie (although the bartender was taciturn). i had this eggplant campanata bruschetta and chanterelles with snow peas. good, although the chanterelles were extremely buttery. andy had arctic char which came w/ bits of pickled watermelon on it. winnie and tim had some octopus which they raved about. i forget what else they got; i was too busy chowin' down.

read ghost world yesterday, a graphic novel about cynical recent high school graduates. the main character was sort of like janeane garofalo's character from reality bites, but younger and much more obnoxious. a bit better than i thought it would be. not sure i'd want to see the movie, though.

phew! that's it for now.
posted by fwc | 7/7/2004 9:24 AM

finally finished this neverending mix. (while we're on the subject, i also finally put up my new and improved list of mixes i've made. i still have to go back and add some of the older stuff, but you can go ahead and marvel at it now.) at first i wanted to do a non-vocal mix of all types of genres, but i couldn't really find enough non-classical stuff so i just mostly stuck w/ classical (the exceptions being the two music box bjork tracks and the ravi shankar track). some of these tracks are super short, some super long; all of them feature a solo instrument. i also tried to find tracks featuring something other than violin, cello, and piano. i think it turned out to be an interesting mix of different types of classical music. so here's the tracklisting. w00t.

o mio solo mix
1 bjork . vespertine . frosti [edited]
2 bach, heinrich schiff . cello suite #2 in dm . i prelude
3 vores, regina shenderovich . preludes . prelude #1: twinkletoes
4 torke, john harle/albany SO . saxophone concerto . iii
5 britten, julian bream . nocturnal . iii restless
6 szymanowski, chantal juillet/montréal SO/dutoit . violin concerto #2 . moderato, molto tranquillo (part)
7 stravinsky, maurizio pollini . 3 movements from petrushka . iii la semaine grasse.
8 vivaldi, oleg talipin/renaissance CO/korchin . concerto for bassoon in am . ii andante molto
9 britten, mstislav rostropovich . cello suite #1 . iii moto perpetuo e canto quarto: presto
10 bach, glenn gould . the well-tempered clavier, book 1 . prelude #20 in am
11 ravi shankar . in new york . nala bhairavi
12 britten, dennis brain . serenade for tenor, horn, and strings . prologue
13 cage, margaret leng tan . suite for toy piano . #2
14 harbison, janine jansen . four songs of solitude . song #4
15 debussy, soloist?/georgian FO/kahi . danses . danse sacreé
16 scarlatti, michael lewin . sonata in dm (andante)
17 bjork . cocoon (UK, EP#2) . pagan poetry (music box)
posted by fwc | 6/30/2004 12:51 AM

allow me a minute to rave about joanna newsom. i first read about her a couple of days ago in kelefa sanneh's review in the new york times. kelefa is the man. he could be a little harsher in his reviews sometimes, but he rarely steers me wrong; and in this case he steered me extremely right. andy and i were so intrigued by her music video (see below) that we ran out and bought the CD from newbury comics. joanna plays a full-size classical harp, but in a very folk style. it really reminds me of appalachian music, which is a bit weird that i recognize it, but i heard bits of it growing up in kentucky. anyway, she somehow taps into this odd mix of whimsy, childhood wonder, wise musings, and flat out craziness. it's been really addictive. her voice has been compared to bjork's in its style rather than its sound: immediately distinctive, free-wheeling, and reckless. definitely the best CD i've heard in a while. andy and my favorite lyric so far: "i killed my dinner. with karate."

intrigued? check out these links:
- record label: has a good video of one of her songs
- official site: has three mp3s, esp. check out the third one
- really good SF interview
- boston.com review/interview

in other news, ani difranco has hopped on the bootleg series bandwagon, via her site. i got the first one today (man, how much do i love getting stuff in the mail?), a solo concert from her 2003 tour. it's pretty good, although i'm not sure if i'm going to be getting all of them. supposedly a new one will be coming out every 6 weeks.
posted by fwc | 6/28/2004 8:32 PM

i've been going a bit mad trying to finish this mix that i've had haunting me for what feels like at least a month. i know for sure it's going to have a movement from john cage's suite for toy piano. more news hopefully soon; i think the finish line is in sight.

i've been keeping track of the more bizarre ways people have made it to this little blog. here's the current list (fill in your own "WTF??" comments). i omitted the ones that can't be repeated in polite society, and i just know this list is going to single-handedly screw up google's search engine.

shapely+korean+lady+pictures [yeah, joyce!]
pic+of+an+oompa+loompa+by+itself
how+did+lead+get+in+to++mexican+candy
spicy%22+burger+king+.mp3
wine+with+a+pickled+cobra+pictures
remedy+overprocessed+hair+mayonnaise
happy+cow+commercials
cartoon+made-up+stories+about+sea+cucumbers
what++does+a+ladybug+have+on+it%27s+belly
posted by fwc | 6/26/2004 10:45 AM

welcome back to fred's literary corner.

just finished reading eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation by lynne truss. i imagine most people have heard about this book by now. all in all it was a quick and mostly diverting read. there was some correct usage that i didn't know, some i did know, and some i didn't know i knew. also, incorporates a lot of history about where our punctuation comes from, and choice quotes from famous writers such as shaw and gertrude stein about punctuation. surprisingly, given its trim size, the book could have been edited a bit; but it's still a good read and has me using semicolons more often with a little less guilt. the humor is a bit predictable, but there are some bits that made me laugh out loud like some sort of english major nerd.

read the earliest english poems translated by michael alexander a while back. def. an interesting collection; most are of excerpts. had a good balance of the typical ragin' vikings fare and some surprisingly eloquent ballad-y type bits. also had great introductions to each selection.

anyway, here's a bit from one that i found particularly worthwhile.

"The Wanderer"
...
Awakeneth after this friendless man,
seeth before him fallow waves,
seabirds bathing, broading out feathers,
snow and hail swirl, hoar-frost falling.
Then all the heavier his heart's wounds,
sore for his loved lord. Sorrow freshens.

Remembered kinsmen press through his mind;
he singeth out gladly, scanneth eagerly
men from the same hearth. They swim away.
Sailors' ghosts bring not many
known songs there. Care grows fresh
in him who shall send forth too often
over locked waves his weary spirit.

...
The wine-halls crumble; their wielders lie
bereft of bliss, the band all fallen
proud by the wall. War took off some,
carried them on their course hence; one a bird bore
over the high sea; one the hoar wolf
dealt to death; one his drear-cheeked
earl stretched in an earthen trench.

...
In the earth-realm all is crossed;
Wierd's will changeth the world.
Wealth is lent us, friends are lent us,
man is lent, kin is lent;
all this earth's frame shall stand empty.
posted by fwc | 6/23/2004 8:10 AM

andy and i went to ana sortun's oleana (134 hampshire, near kendall and inman sq) on saturday. i'm surprised we haven't been there earlier since it's one of the favorite restaurants of a group of andy's friends that we eat out w/ fairly regularly. anyway, we were outside in the surprisingly large back and it was a great setting, although rather cold. i had the vegetarian tasting menu. here's the food porn channel run down [actually i started writing this and found my memory to be woefully lacking. then i got the bright idea to look up the menu online.] 1) a little lump of pureed carrot (but more like finely grated, dense and chilled) w/ an "egyptian" spice mixture + a little lump of "armenian bean and walnut pâté" w/ homemade string cheese on the side. the bean and walnut thing was kind of dense and chewy. kind of weird. 2) the salad special. mostly arugula, roasted fennel (mm), and peaches. what can you say? it was a salad. 3) a side from one of the day's specials. olive puree w/ sugar snap peas (mm), something green (i forget. cress maybe?), and a bit of potato puree. 4) another side from one of the day's specials. filo wrapped around a roasted red pepper and corn mixture. side of fresh corn in a creamy sauce. 5) two little breaded cheese thingies. the dessert it came w/ wasn't so great. i forget what it was exactly; some sort of white nougat thing. but we also had this bing cherry granita w/ crème fraîche that was good. not too sweet. one of the better desserts i've had. all in all, this one's def a keeper. (btw, 3 of the 4 people i went w/ had the steak special, which they said was great.) i was reminded that i haven't been back to casablanca; i should check that out again as well.
posted by fwc | 6/20/2004 10:17 PM

in case you've forgotten what winnie and i look like, here are some pics from when we saw tom stoppard's jumpers in NY with debbie and andy i think in april or so.
posted by fwc | 6/16/2004 8:45 AM

modernhumorist.com has some pretty funny stuff. it can be hit or miss, but one of the definite hits is a "what if jewel wrote the theme song to the summer blockbuster x-men"? you can download it from this page.

posted by fwc | 6/11/2004 9:32 AM

ate at the bar at hamersley's last night. the food was very good, but andy and i both were rather offended actually at how the bartender was rude and condescending on two separate instances, so much so that we complained about it. mini rant: why is it so hard to get good service anywhere? andy points out that service in england is poor all the time, but still you'd think it wouldn't be that hard to teach your waitstaff, especially a bartender, to be gracious, polite, and eager to please. and it really does make a tremendous difference on how enjoyable your meal is. and then it's funny how you get perfect friendly and polite service in unlikely places, like some hole in the wall place like samraat or dok bua. i find the whole situation to be completely baffling.

anyway, back to the food. mmm. i had the wild mushroom soup w/ white truffle oil which was very mushroom-y. i also had buttery/lemon spinach noodles w/ white asparagus which had a bit of sheep's milk cheese, spinach, and some nice little bits of some type of strong, earthy mushroom. andy had the tuna which he said was great, and it came w/ this beet "cake" (basically three layers of beet with goat cheese in between) that, surprisingly in a good way, had mustard on it. for dessert we had the orange meringue which i thought had a hint of sesame but which andy didn't taste. a note about desserts; andy summed it up the best. he said we end up ordering desserts not because we expect them to be any good, but because we wonder if this will be the one time that it is good. when we thought about the last time we've had a really excellent dessert we came up w/ a complete blank, though (although i have to say that i still have fond memories of the creme brulee i had at radius, and the chocolate plate at great bay was also good). where in the world can we get a good dessert?
posted by fwc | 6/6/2004 11:25 AM

this weekend in food ...

went to two eateries for the first time.

shabu-zen (16 tyler st in chinatown) is a bit more than a year old and is shabu-shabu all the time. shabu-shabu is "the latest Asian food fad to sweep through California". basically it involves cooking your own meat and veggies in a boiling broth. this boston.com review is a good intro to what it's all about. i had the vegetarian version and it was pretty good (although in retrospect i think it came w/ fish balls), although it's definitely more one of those places like fire and ice where the food isn't that exciting but where it's good to take a date or people from out of town to.

also went to central kitchen (mass ave in central sq) w/ andy. the service was subpar. you know it's a bad sign when your server forgets to tell you the specials. anyway, andy had the roast lamb which he said was good but a bit overpriced for what it was. i had the stuffed sweet onion. it was in a creamy goat cheese sauce with a mostly artichoke/asparagus mixture and came on a bed of "fregola", which according to formaggiokitchen.com is "a grain sized toasted pasta from Sardinia". all in all it was better than most vegetarian things i get, although it wasn't that fantastic. (we would've gone to salts, winnie, but they were booked. soon.) incidentally, here's a tip for all you clueless restaurant patrons out there: don't ever feed someone else food in a restaurant unless they're under the age of 2. it really creeps other people out.

another newer find is shino express (newbury st near dartmouth). i'm surprised that andy and i didn't try it sooner. it's pretty cheap, pretty tasty sushi. the rice and nori are a bit dry and bland, but last time i got the vegetable futomaki and some inari (fried tofu wrappers) and both were good, and the ambience is very cool.
posted by fwc | 6/3/2004 9:31 AM

why has all the stuff i've been posting lately been so fluffy? anyway, here are some slightly more substantial bits on breakfast/brunch places:

garden of eden (tremont st in the south end): yet another one of those places that andy and i haven't been to in a while and for good reason. we tried it for breakfast and we were both quite disappointed. the service was as bad as we remembered, and literally all they had was eggs, omelettes, toast, granola, and pastries. no bacon, no pancakes, nada. also, since when do you get plain toast and have to ask for butter and jam? that's just pathetic.

scollay square (21 beacon st, beacon hill): kind of new place next door to where my friend roy lives. we went on a sunday and it was pretty empty. i got a really good, albeit simple, portabella sandwich with cress and goat cheese. roy had a spinach and goat cheese omelette and andy had eggs and hash. andy wasn't impressed w/ what he got but said he'd be up for trying it for dinner. in any case both of us have decided that we need to try some of the places in beacon hill seeing as how we've pretty much run out of ones in the south end.

---
in other news, i'm currently reading oranges by a guy named john mcphee. winnie would be proud of me, heh. i got it randomly from andy, but it's pretty entertaining. it's exhaustive and a bit tedious at times, but overall it provides loads of useless facts that would be perfect for impersonal cocktail chitchat ... well, among pomologists anyway. a sample of such trivia and some choice quotes:

"Oranges ... were the golden apples of the Hesperides, which were stolen by Hercules."

The color of the orange has no bearing on how ripe it is

Unlike other fruits, oranges don't ripen once picked.

"If an orange has five seeds or less, it is called seedless."

"Blood oranges grow well in Florida, but they frighten American women."

"The sex life of citrus is something fantastic."
posted by fwc | 5/28/2004 3:20 PM

someone has been remiss in informing me about funny things in the new york times. yesterday i stumbled across this old slideshow of comedy writers' imaginings of 2004 oscar award acceptance speeches. most of them are dispensible, but the one for sofia copolla by gawker.com is well worth reading.
posted by fwc | 5/27/2004 5:45 AM

in case you haven't heard, every single peanuts cartoon is being published in 25 books. i have to say the modern strips were really mediocre, but the early stuff is really great. the really early stuff is my favorite; they're surprisingly cynical and calvin and hobbes-esque. anyway, here are some excerpts from amazon's description about the first book (which i've already ordered, btw).

50 years of art. 25 books. Over 7500 pages of comics. Two books per year for 12 ¼ years.

Each volume in the series will run approximately 320 pages in a 8 ¾" x 7" hardcover format, presenting two years of strips along with supplementary material. The series will present the entire run in chronological order, including dailies and Sundays, in a three-tier page format that will accommodate three dailies or one Sunday strip per page. The Sundays will be printed in black-and-white.

posted by fwc | 5/25/2004 4:37 PM

silly stuff about chips ...

here's a bit of a conversation i had over AIM w/ a friend of mine who's spending the year in china and was telling me about how much he misses spaghetti:

fred: they don't have doritos over there?
mike: they have lays
mike: but funky flavour man
fred: hahahaha
mike: chinese noodle, roasted lamb, hot peppers, beijing duck
mike: kinda nasty to tell u the truth
fred: those are the flavors??
mike: and the normal kind barely has any flavor
mike: some of them are even worse
fred: like what??
mike: they have some chinese vegetable flavor
mike: so gross man
mike: and bean curd

my sister sends me random articles. this one (Pringles potato snack to get printed designs) had a really funny quote:

"Pringles is the leader and founder of the stacked crisp category and now we're taking it to a whole new level," said Jamie Egasti, vice president of the firm's North America snacks division. "With the introduction of Pringles Prints, we have developed a new way to delight consumers by adding fun and excitement to one of kids' favorite lunchtime snacks while delivering incremental volume growth for our customers."

you heard it here first.
posted by fwc | 5/21/2004 9:52 AM

i forget who told me about this site. maybe it was austin. anyway, bizarrerecords.com is a great collection of truly bizarre records with cover pics and some sound clips. for a good cross-section, check out this blog.
posted by fwc | 5/16/2004 4:57 PM

had jury duty this week in dorchester. this is the second time that i've had it, but it turned out to be fine. unlike last time, this time i actually got tapped to sit on a case, but then after waiting around for a while at the last minute the guy pleaded guilty so i got to go home early.

the day turned out to be worthwhile anyway, b/c i found this great vegan place called cafe mosheh in the middle of dorchester right across from the courthouse. (for hours and location see the entry at www.bostonveg.org.) i have no idea how it got there, but i think it might be vegan due to some religious belief. but anyway, it was good. as a snack i had some cold stuffed shells, which instead of ricotta had a tasty tofu mixture. mmm. then out of curiosity i tried the tofu chocolate pie (which looks like they get from someone else) which was also good, although the texture got to be too dry on the tongue. for lunch i had the teriyaki tofu w/ brown rice and collard greens. mmm mmm. i'm def. going to have to trek all the way out to this place again. it's about an 8 minute walk from the shawmut T stop on the redline.

this is yet another old thing, but i had to post a scan of the easter candy from CVS. it's so bizarre! but funny. what in the world does the computer have to do w/ easter? looks like our easter bunny is going to email us some easter eggs.


posted by fwc | 5/13/2004 9:18 AM

here's another old thing that i never got around to posting. a while back i read pablo neruda's the book of questions. the collection consists solely of two line questions, divided into sets of three or four. the content gets to be a bit dull, but every once in a while neruda comes across something startlingly whimsical or proverbial or both. a coincidence is that i had picked up the book unseen rain: quatrains of rumi a few weeks earlier. rumi was an ancient mystical persian poet, and the foreword of the neruda book compared neruda's book of questions to rumi's poetry. i liked neruda much better, although this was not neruda's best work. unlike neruda, the directness and simplicity of rumi's poetry was dull and unenlightening instead of focused and intense. anyway, here are some excerpts:

unseen rain: quatrains of rumi (coleman barks translator)
Sleep this year has no authority.
Night might as well stop looking for us
when we're like this,
invisible, except at dawn.

---
If you want to live, leave your banks,
as a small stream enters the Oxus, miles wide,
or as cattle moving around a millstone
suddenly circle to the top of the sphere.

---
the book of questions (william o'daly translator)
from XIII
Is it true that a black condor
flies at night over my country?

Es verdad que vuela de noche
sobre mi patria un cóndor negro?

---
from XV
But is it true that the vests
are preparing to revolt?

Pero es verdad que se prepara
la insurrección do los chalecos?

---
from LXIV
Do we learn kindness
or the mask of kindness?

Es que se aprende la bondad
o la máscara de la bondad?
posted by fwc | 7/22/2004 12:07 PM

two more sources of time wastage:

art of the mix: upload mix tracklistings (CD or cassette or playlists) and trade w/ others.

audioscrobbler: download a plug-in to winamp and some other mp3 players to keep statistics on who you listen to the most. also a good source of "if you like artist A you might like artist B" recommendations. also has loads of useless statistics, like "Top 10 Rising Songs", "Top 10 Falling Songs", "Highest New Artist Entries", and "Highest Artist Non-Movers". yeah! lists! some interesting numbers:

Top Tracks:
#1 Modest Mouse - Float On
#3 The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
#7 The Darkness - I Believe In A Thing Called Love
#9 Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

people are still listening to smells like teen spirit??? geez. the song is just not -that- good. re: the darkness, andy showed me the video for that song and it was great, but in a very kitschy sort of way. it baffles me how some apparently random people hit pop culture from nowhere. i mean, someone told me she heard the darkness's single playing at a super target in indiana. baffling.
posted by fwc | 5/4/2004 4:41 PM

actually this page is no longer powered with blogger, but oh well.