'Woman' Bomber Hits Iraq Police - Nobody reports good news from Iraq: they're making progress toward women's rights.
Weblogs 'Need Content Warnings' - Fuck you, Tim O'Reilly.
Many Dieters 'Finish Up Heavier' - More news from the nutrition journal Duh.
China Slams US Piracy Complaint - US files complaint with WTO. Chinese complaint nearly identical, much cheaper.
Text Message Boss Killed In Crash - Oh, I hope he was talking on his cell phone...
Australia to Double Afghan Force - Now sending six baby-eating dingoes.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Heard In The Car
Lex: "It's not my legs, I just don't have the lungs."
Zoe: "I have the lungs, it's just my knees."
Lex: "Put us together and we're a great runner."
Zoe (incredulous): "What are you talking about? Put us together and we suck!"
(laughter)
Zoe: "Oh... Wait. I see what you mean. (laughs too) I guess I was doing the glass-half-empty thing..."
Zoe: "I have the lungs, it's just my knees."
Lex: "Put us together and we're a great runner."
Zoe (incredulous): "What are you talking about? Put us together and we suck!"
(laughter)
Zoe: "Oh... Wait. I see what you mean. (laughs too) I guess I was doing the glass-half-empty thing..."
Monday, April 9, 2007
Monday Morning Blahs
Blah, blah, blah. It's a dismal gray morning and I don't feel funny at all. So, instead of my usual snarky take on the news, adventures in editing, or tales of some childhood trauma, you get another episode of Cooking With Deadspot. Enjoy!
A few posts ago, I mentioned in passing that my daughter Zoe and I made something for her world studies class that my wife described as Indian Salsa. It's actually kind of a chunky yogurt-less raita, more salsa in form than flavor, but it is pretty tasty. Zoe's class is covering southern asia right now, and they all brought in something to share. This was her contribution. WP (Three blogs?!? I'm barely interesting enough for one...) wanted the recipe ...and since I'm strapped for content today (it was this or another round of "What's on my iPod"), I'll share it with everyone instead of posting it in the comments.
(This was from memory, so I had to fix it later. Let me know how it turned out if you tried it the other way...)
Indian Salsa
Veggies:
1 cucumber
2 tomatoes
6-8 green onions
Peel the cucumber and dice into roughly salsa-sized chunks. (I didn’t measure, but the biggest slices ended up as 16 pieces, 3 cuts in each direction.) Ditto for the tomatoes, except they’re going to be even sloppier. Slice the green onions into thin rings. Toss all of these in a bowl.
Dressing:
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon fresh chopped cilantro
Just before serving, mix, pour the dressing over the veggies, and toss again.
(You could probably double everything but the cilantro in the dressing and be fine. There isn’t a lot of liquid for the amount of veggies, and it all settles to the bottom anyway. More dressing would make it easier to mix the flavors, but if you double the cilantro you probably won't taste anything else.)
Garnish:
2 Tablespoons salted dry-roasted peanuts, crushed (we used the back of a wooden spatula on a cutting board to crush them, and it was easy-peasy.)
Sprinkle over the top at the last minute and serve.
It works as a nice cucumber salad by itself, but Zoe said that her class loved it as a dip for tortilla chips (no, I don't know why there were tortilla chips on hand unless someone was badly confused about their geography), and I bet it would be good on top of flatbread or in a pita.
A few posts ago, I mentioned in passing that my daughter Zoe and I made something for her world studies class that my wife described as Indian Salsa. It's actually kind of a chunky yogurt-less raita, more salsa in form than flavor, but it is pretty tasty. Zoe's class is covering southern asia right now, and they all brought in something to share. This was her contribution. WP (Three blogs?!? I'm barely interesting enough for one...) wanted the recipe ...and since I'm strapped for content today (it was this or another round of "What's on my iPod"), I'll share it with everyone instead of posting it in the comments.
(This was from memory, so I had to fix it later. Let me know how it turned out if you tried it the other way...)
Indian Salsa
Veggies:
1 cucumber
2 tomatoes
6-8 green onions
Peel the cucumber and dice into roughly salsa-sized chunks. (I didn’t measure, but the biggest slices ended up as 16 pieces, 3 cuts in each direction.) Ditto for the tomatoes, except they’re going to be even sloppier. Slice the green onions into thin rings. Toss all of these in a bowl.
Dressing:
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
1 Tablespoon olive oil
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 Tablespoon fresh chopped cilantro
Just before serving, mix, pour the dressing over the veggies, and toss again.
(You could probably double everything but the cilantro in the dressing and be fine. There isn’t a lot of liquid for the amount of veggies, and it all settles to the bottom anyway. More dressing would make it easier to mix the flavors, but if you double the cilantro you probably won't taste anything else.)
Garnish:
2 Tablespoons salted dry-roasted peanuts, crushed (we used the back of a wooden spatula on a cutting board to crush them, and it was easy-peasy.)
Sprinkle over the top at the last minute and serve.
It works as a nice cucumber salad by itself, but Zoe said that her class loved it as a dip for tortilla chips (no, I don't know why there were tortilla chips on hand unless someone was badly confused about their geography), and I bet it would be good on top of flatbread or in a pita.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
How Is That Even Possible?
It's official: conditions at Guantanamo are actually getting worse. Is there nothing the Bushies can't make worse? Where do they go from here? I fear that this can only end in show tunes.
I find it profoundly depressing that I live in a country that has to be told by Amnesty International that, "While the United States has an obligation to protect its citizens... that does not relieve the United States from its responsibilities to comply with human rights."
I don't like living in a country with secret courts. I don't like living in a country that ignores international law. I don't like living in a country that is a violator of human rights. Aren't these the sorts of things that we are supposed to be against?
Wait... did you feel that? I think that was the Axis of Evil shifting.
I find it profoundly depressing that I live in a country that has to be told by Amnesty International that, "While the United States has an obligation to protect its citizens... that does not relieve the United States from its responsibilities to comply with human rights."
I don't like living in a country with secret courts. I don't like living in a country that ignores international law. I don't like living in a country that is a violator of human rights. Aren't these the sorts of things that we are supposed to be against?
Wait... did you feel that? I think that was the Axis of Evil shifting.
Chitown Weekend, part 2
We found the Yen place right where Johnny had said it would be. Adam answered the door, and Lex and I finally met Kim and Mel. (They're nice. You'd like them.) Johnny appeared from the back yard to announce the fire was lit, I shared my new-found knowledge about the Kennedy and the Dan Ryan (which resulted in confusion all around, as I failed to provide any context), we found out just how much slack Kim and Mel had in their schedule (not much), and Johnny and I dashed off to the Jewels for provisions.
I think it was at about this point, on the road to the Jewels, that we first used what would become something of a catchphrase for the weekend. “All it takes is to not be a dick.” “That’s all it takes.” (The other catchphrase was, of course, “Did you know that the Dan Ryan and the Kennedy are the same highway?”) It seems like such obvious advice, and it applies to so many situations in life, but some people never learn this simple lesson. Tony Blair, old roommates, assorted family members... all of you take note; it’s not that complicated. How do people get through life without learning this?
We got back, swapped supervisory roles with Kim, and I whipped up a batch of burgers while Johnny made a great little cucumber, tomato, and onion salad. Lex wants me to get the recipe. He denies that I’ve ever made anything similar: “The tomato makes the dish.” (Oddly enough, Zoe and I ended up making an Indian dish that uses a lot of the same ingredients a few days later for her world studies class. Sue described it as Indian Salsa. It was a big hit with the class. Zoe said it was fun and that she wants to help cook sometimes. We’ll see how long this enthusiasm lasts…) With the coals ready, we retired to the back yard to grill and catch up, and yak about things in the real world and the blogiverse.
After dinner, Johnny and I retired to the backyard to fire up the fire pit and take a stab at watching Shaun of the Dead on his laptop next to the fire. Alas, the volume couldn’t compete with the ambient noise, so we ended up watching it inside. (Note to the Department of Homeland Security: Equip every home with a cricket bat ASAP.) The boys hung out by the fire pit for a while before joining us for a little zombie violence (which is so much better than the regular kind).
After the Meat, Fire, and Violence trifecta, the only thing the evening needed to be the complete Boy’s Night Out™ was Booze. Johnny and I tromped off to imbibe, just beating the catastrophic downpour. Johnny introduced me to his colleagues, including Phil (of God’s Own Suburb fame), we had a few libations, and moved on to another bar after the rain died down.
We had a few more drinks, I admired the art in the men’s room (cartoony smoking bunnies, which is a pretty narrow niche for an artist to choose when you think about it), and we eventually made it back to the Yen place for some hard-earned rest.
I did not die crossing Western Avenue in either direction (Kim was worried).
I think it was at about this point, on the road to the Jewels, that we first used what would become something of a catchphrase for the weekend. “All it takes is to not be a dick.” “That’s all it takes.” (The other catchphrase was, of course, “Did you know that the Dan Ryan and the Kennedy are the same highway?”) It seems like such obvious advice, and it applies to so many situations in life, but some people never learn this simple lesson. Tony Blair, old roommates, assorted family members... all of you take note; it’s not that complicated. How do people get through life without learning this?
We got back, swapped supervisory roles with Kim, and I whipped up a batch of burgers while Johnny made a great little cucumber, tomato, and onion salad. Lex wants me to get the recipe. He denies that I’ve ever made anything similar: “The tomato makes the dish.” (Oddly enough, Zoe and I ended up making an Indian dish that uses a lot of the same ingredients a few days later for her world studies class. Sue described it as Indian Salsa. It was a big hit with the class. Zoe said it was fun and that she wants to help cook sometimes. We’ll see how long this enthusiasm lasts…) With the coals ready, we retired to the back yard to grill and catch up, and yak about things in the real world and the blogiverse.
After dinner, Johnny and I retired to the backyard to fire up the fire pit and take a stab at watching Shaun of the Dead on his laptop next to the fire. Alas, the volume couldn’t compete with the ambient noise, so we ended up watching it inside. (Note to the Department of Homeland Security: Equip every home with a cricket bat ASAP.) The boys hung out by the fire pit for a while before joining us for a little zombie violence (which is so much better than the regular kind).
After the Meat, Fire, and Violence trifecta, the only thing the evening needed to be the complete Boy’s Night Out™ was Booze. Johnny and I tromped off to imbibe, just beating the catastrophic downpour. Johnny introduced me to his colleagues, including Phil (of God’s Own Suburb fame), we had a few libations, and moved on to another bar after the rain died down.
We had a few more drinks, I admired the art in the men’s room (cartoony smoking bunnies, which is a pretty narrow niche for an artist to choose when you think about it), and we eventually made it back to the Yen place for some hard-earned rest.
I did not die crossing Western Avenue in either direction (Kim was worried).
Wednesday, April 4, 2007
Weirdness and Wonder in the Deutsches Museum
Part 2 of Adventures in Chicagoland will come later... meaning that it will take longer to blog about them than it actually took to have them.
In any case, Johnny was talking about museums and airplanes and Germans and stuff, and it reminded me of something weird and wondrous and cool so I'm going to blog about that instead.
I love museums. I believe I've mentioned before that I'm a geek, so this should come as no surprise. So it transpired that when I went to Munich, I found myself in the Deutsches Museum. My German was, as they say in Deutschland, ganz rostig... (Do they really say that? I don't know. I said it there. Because I'm a geek.) ...still, given time, I could puzzle out some of the descriptions. I rarely got the time, because my colleague was less of a museum fan than I was, but we shambled through the museum admiring the displays and sometimes stopping to figure out half of what the display was about.
Now, in retrospect, the weird and wondrous thing should have come as no surprise, but I have been in so many museums that I have come to expect to see all the usual suspects. And so, when I turned the corner into the aerospace section of the museum, I was totally taken by surprise. I was in the 1940s part of the aerospace collection.
In Germany.
Instead of the usual Mustangs and Corsairs and B-17s on display, there were Junkers and Messerschmitts and Heinkels, oh my. There was an Me 262, the first jet fighter. There was a stubby little rocket-powered Komet, one of only ten left in the world (and now I'd seen 2 of them). The whole museum display paradigm that I was used to was tossed on its head because, of course, this was German aviation history, not American aviation history.
I was exhausted and jet-lagged and filled with wonder.
My coworker was ready to go to the giftshop.
In any case, Johnny was talking about museums and airplanes and Germans and stuff, and it reminded me of something weird and wondrous and cool so I'm going to blog about that instead.
I love museums. I believe I've mentioned before that I'm a geek, so this should come as no surprise. So it transpired that when I went to Munich, I found myself in the Deutsches Museum. My German was, as they say in Deutschland, ganz rostig... (Do they really say that? I don't know. I said it there. Because I'm a geek.) ...still, given time, I could puzzle out some of the descriptions. I rarely got the time, because my colleague was less of a museum fan than I was, but we shambled through the museum admiring the displays and sometimes stopping to figure out half of what the display was about.
Now, in retrospect, the weird and wondrous thing should have come as no surprise, but I have been in so many museums that I have come to expect to see all the usual suspects. And so, when I turned the corner into the aerospace section of the museum, I was totally taken by surprise. I was in the 1940s part of the aerospace collection.
In Germany.
Instead of the usual Mustangs and Corsairs and B-17s on display, there were Junkers and Messerschmitts and Heinkels, oh my. There was an Me 262, the first jet fighter. There was a stubby little rocket-powered Komet, one of only ten left in the world (and now I'd seen 2 of them). The whole museum display paradigm that I was used to was tossed on its head because, of course, this was German aviation history, not American aviation history.
I was exhausted and jet-lagged and filled with wonder.
My coworker was ready to go to the giftshop.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Chitown Weekend, part 1
Saturday morning Lex and I had his first soccer game. Ouch. We drove back across town to catch Zoe's game. Ouch. Then we hit the highway for our road trip to Chicago, and everything turned around. The weather was great. The Ramones came on the radio right as we got on the highway, and then, once we got on I-57 (the alimentary canal of Illinois interstate highways) we listened to the History of the World Cup book on tape (combining our loves of history and soccer into one neat package).
I-57 between C-U and Chicago, if you haven't driven it, is about 2 hours of mind-numbing boredom. There are two kinds of scenery. You have your cornfields. And you have your bean fields. At this time of year, they are indistinguishable squares of dirt. I feel secure in stating this because, if you are a farmer who wishes to weigh in on the subtle differences, you probably aren't reading my blog.
Johnny had warned me about the construction on the Dan Ryan...
Let me digress, for those readers who are not from Illinois. Chicagoans love their interstate highways. They have names for them, like pets. All of them. Most are named after politicians great and small: The Kennedy, The Eisenhower, The Stevenson, The Dan Ryan, The Edens... but there are exceptions, like the Skyway. I think it started out as a scheme to confuse out of towners, but most Chicagoans that I've asked no longer have any idea what numbers go with what name either, so well done. Once you get them off the highway, their directions are fine, but until then, they might as well be speaking Swahili.
So... Johnny, construction, Dan Ryan, mapquest. Did I mention mapquest? Consider it mentioned. I hit mapquest to doublecheck the connections from I-57 to my exit to fill in the bit between "yeah, yeah, yeah, I drive here all the time" to "Oh yeah, street names, I should listen to this bit". On mapquest, they thoughtfully provide both the numbers and the names of the highways (or "expressways" in Chicagospeak, despite the fact that they often move more slowly than "roads" once enough people are actually using them...). I scrolled over to the highway. 90/94... Kennedy. Fabulous. Why was Johnny talking about the Dan Ryan? I'm coming in on the Kennedy.
I made great time, sailing up 57, changing to 94, and I was home free. I started seeing detour signs for Dan Ryan construction. Ha. Poor bastards. They ought to be driving on the Kennedy, like me. Then all forward motion sort of ground to a halt. The Dan Ryan? What the hell am I doing on the Dan Ryan? Stupid mapquest. I had Lex dig out the map and figure out how to use it to find out what highway we were actually on. Then I taught him how to fold a map. (First, find the crease that doesn't change from an up-crease to a down-crease. Fold there first. Now look for one that doesn't change after making that fold. Lather, rinse, repeat.)
The Dan Ryan and the Kennedy? Same highway. 90/94 is the Kennedy, but only north of the Loop. South of the loop, it's the Dan Ryan. No problem. I wasn't lost, just confused.
We made it through the bowels of the Interstate Highway system depite IDOT's best efforts to the contrary, onto the Kennedy and off it again, followed Johnny's directions, serendipitously found the only parking space on his street right at the corner, grabbed our stuff from the trunk, and sloped off toward the Casa del Yen to see Johnny and Adam and meet Kim and Mel.
I-57 between C-U and Chicago, if you haven't driven it, is about 2 hours of mind-numbing boredom. There are two kinds of scenery. You have your cornfields. And you have your bean fields. At this time of year, they are indistinguishable squares of dirt. I feel secure in stating this because, if you are a farmer who wishes to weigh in on the subtle differences, you probably aren't reading my blog.
Johnny had warned me about the construction on the Dan Ryan...
Let me digress, for those readers who are not from Illinois. Chicagoans love their interstate highways. They have names for them, like pets. All of them. Most are named after politicians great and small: The Kennedy, The Eisenhower, The Stevenson, The Dan Ryan, The Edens... but there are exceptions, like the Skyway. I think it started out as a scheme to confuse out of towners, but most Chicagoans that I've asked no longer have any idea what numbers go with what name either, so well done. Once you get them off the highway, their directions are fine, but until then, they might as well be speaking Swahili.
So... Johnny, construction, Dan Ryan, mapquest. Did I mention mapquest? Consider it mentioned. I hit mapquest to doublecheck the connections from I-57 to my exit to fill in the bit between "yeah, yeah, yeah, I drive here all the time" to "Oh yeah, street names, I should listen to this bit". On mapquest, they thoughtfully provide both the numbers and the names of the highways (or "expressways" in Chicagospeak, despite the fact that they often move more slowly than "roads" once enough people are actually using them...). I scrolled over to the highway. 90/94... Kennedy. Fabulous. Why was Johnny talking about the Dan Ryan? I'm coming in on the Kennedy.
I made great time, sailing up 57, changing to 94, and I was home free. I started seeing detour signs for Dan Ryan construction. Ha. Poor bastards. They ought to be driving on the Kennedy, like me. Then all forward motion sort of ground to a halt. The Dan Ryan? What the hell am I doing on the Dan Ryan? Stupid mapquest. I had Lex dig out the map and figure out how to use it to find out what highway we were actually on. Then I taught him how to fold a map. (First, find the crease that doesn't change from an up-crease to a down-crease. Fold there first. Now look for one that doesn't change after making that fold. Lather, rinse, repeat.)
The Dan Ryan and the Kennedy? Same highway. 90/94 is the Kennedy, but only north of the Loop. South of the loop, it's the Dan Ryan. No problem. I wasn't lost, just confused.
We made it through the bowels of the Interstate Highway system depite IDOT's best efforts to the contrary, onto the Kennedy and off it again, followed Johnny's directions, serendipitously found the only parking space on his street right at the corner, grabbed our stuff from the trunk, and sloped off toward the Casa del Yen to see Johnny and Adam and meet Kim and Mel.
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