food

I actually followed the Iron Man comic for a few years back in the mid-to-late 1980s, so I’m a fan. And it was a hot day, so I splurged on this collectible. A bit of fun, and the Slurpee was delicious.

Several weeks ago, Leah got me a jar of Jelly Bellies for work from CostCo (our houseguests had a membership and we took advantage of it for a wee little while):

Here they are yesterday, at the tail end of their existence:

I like having candy at my desk. Folks come by, they say hello, they hang out. It’s cool. Jelly Bellies are a pretty spiffy candy anyway. Yesterday while playing some Munchkin, the jar got finished. I still have some candy at my desk, leftover from the gingerbread-house making back on Thanksgiving, but it’s almost all gone. If Christmas brings more candy, I expect I’ll have even more to share at my desk.

I could not possibly say it any better than Sassy did in his post: Turkey Time at Vista Seeker:

I am a big Thanksgiving fan. It’s a holiday with the sole purpose of getting together, eating, drinking, and being merry. There’s no religious overtones, no consumerism-tainted gift-guilting, and it’s a one-day thing – no endless parties and social events around it. Plus, it’s a 4-day weekend just when you think you’re about to go insane from not having a day off since Labor Day.

For me, a proper Thanksgiving is a must. No need for new traditions here. Just turkey, taters, gravy, wine. See you in the food coma, kiddies!

Amen! This morning Leah took care of the turkey (I woke up late!) and I did the stuffing. Yesterday she made gingerbread house stuff. Our niece Alison is playing the piano. TonySon is playing the newly purchased Portal and that’s a gas. Now Alex and Leah are doing a big ol’ Puzzle. Tyler is still asleep. Blessings and happiness to all!

To start with, a random screenshot from a video from 1989:

I enjoy his music very much. He got his name from a vision of Oral Roberts:

May 25, 1980, while overlooking his religious center which was in financial difficulty:

“’I felt an overwhelming holy presence all around me. When I opened my eyes, there He stood … some 900 feet tall, looking at me … He stood a full 300 feet taller than the 600-foot-tall City of Faith. There I was face to face with Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God. I have only seen Jesus once before, but here I was face to face with the King of kings. He reached down, put his Hands under the City of Faith, lifted it, and said to me, “See how easy it is for Me to lift it!”’”

“Oral recalled that his eyes filled with tears, and Jesus assured him that He would speak to the ministry’s partners and that the City of Faith would be finished.”

On to Misc, or, continuing the misc!

Ubuntu has a new version out—7.10. A few weeks ago, our houseguests brought with them a sad, cheap Wal-Mart laptop that would neither boot nor behave. I installed Ubuntu (6) for them and it’s given them what they wanted, a basic email and photos and web browsing machine. I have been impressed and as my Windows 2003 Server machine gets lamer (remember that?) it makes me think seriously about converting it to Linux. There are several apps I would miss: FileZilla, TextPad, Paint.NET, iTunes. We’ll see. I’m not really a zealot about open source, but I’ve been following Mark Pilgrim’s posts about switching to Linux and it has me intrigued. And it was great to install an OS on an x86 Machine and not have to dig around in boxes for stupid Activation Keys and do Windows Activation. It might be great for me too.

MAS read a book about SuperFoods, and the list he posted has me interested. Here’s the Cliff’s Notes:

1. Beans
2. Blueberries
3. Broccoli
4. Oats
5. Oranges
6. Pumpkin
7. Wild Salmon
8. Soy
9. Spinach
10. Tea
11. Tomatoes
12. Turkey
13. Walnuts
14. Yogurt

And what’s this? An obscure fact about “protocol relative links”—cool! Http-https transitions and relative URLs, via Simon Willison.

The Harold and Kumar sequel might be called Harold and Kumar go to Guantanamo Bay. That’s as crazy as the first movie was. Harold and Kumar is a dumb movie I really like.

“Guilty Pleasure” movies have been a topic at work of late… two I really like that are not necessarily great movies are Necessary Roughness and Under Siege.

Yes, San Diego Voice and Viewpoint’s website is still under construction. Yes, it’s sad when newspapers, even niche ones, don’t have websites. What year is it again?

Oh, the thing that powers the avatars on my site and over on Leah’s site is called Gravatar. They got bought by WordPress.

I got the new Cat and Girl book in the mail! See, look, here’s proof I got it:

Buy one!

Dave Segovia is reintroducing himself. He’s a heck of a character. Drop by his blog and say “Hi!”

Over on BlogHer, Laura Scott mentioned leahpeah’s recent posting about uncomfortable subjects and readership.

David Foster speaks about a basic question cancer warriors have about why they would get cancer if they did everything right. He’s got the same kind of cancer my Mom has. Here’s a quote:

But they are beating up themselves and their lifestyle for no reason. It is true that some behaviors—like smoking cigarettes—cause cancer. But many—if not most—cancers have nothing to do with how healthily you live your life or how many vegetables you eat or vitamins you take.

And lastly, the estimable Jeffrey Zeldman points to the A List Apart Web Survey Results, which make for some interesting reading.

Have a great weekend!

Mexican. Vegan. Kosher. Soy. Awesome.

There is a great deal of food for thought in Power and Weakness by Robert Kagan, from Policy Review. (via bruce sterling). It’s a long but good article.

... The United States is a behemoth with a conscience. It is not Louis xivs France or George IIIs England. Americans do not argue, even to themselves, that their actions may be justified by raison dtat. Americans have never accepted the principles of Europes old order, never embraced the Machiavellian perspective. The United States is a liberal, progressive society through and through, and to the extent that Americans believe in power, they believe it must be a means of advancing the principles of a liberal civilization and a liberal world order. Americans even share Europes aspirations for a more orderly world system based not on power but on rules after all, they were striving for such a world when Europeans were still extolling the laws of machtpolitik.

But while these common ideals and aspirations shape foreign policies on both sides of the Atlantic, they cannot completely negate the very different perspectives from which Europeans and Americans view the world and the role of power in international affairs. Europeans oppose unilateralism in part because they have no capacity for unilateralism. Polls consistently show that Americans support multilateral action in principle they even support acting under the rubric of the United Nations but the fact remains that the United States can act unilaterally, and has done so many times with reasonable success. For Europeans, the appeal to multilateralism and international law has a real practical payoff and little cost. For Americans, who stand to lose at least some freedom of action, support for universal rules of behavior really is a matter of idealism. ...

Dial-up in the morning
On Friday, my parents came into town. I’ve been terrifically busy since then. Yesterday we did family racquetball, and then down to Pacific Beach, and then to a Baseball game of my 10 year old cousin Michael. After that we went to Mexican food at Marieta’s in Santee. A very busy day, and I got some sun.

Having my parents and sister here has been wonderful. We’ve gotten a chance to do some good and serious talking, and had fun too. I’ve been camped out on the couch of my Grandparents. An odd venue, but it feels like I’m on vacation—staying at the dorm of an old friend.

I woke up early today, and am now doing laundry. Laundry on a Sunday morning is pretty typical for me. But the location today is pretty odd.

My current connection to the internet is a 56k dial-up modem, connected through AOL. My Grandparents have MSIE4 for Windows 98. Checking mail is kind of an adventure. Blogging doubly so.

Things are nice. My sister (and most everyone) is (are) still asleep. My mom is up already, and on a walk. It should be a good day. We intend to go to the Hillcrest Sunday Morning Farmer’s Market and to the Apple Store. More adventures!

Bagels & Lox

Today started with an early morning breakfast with my friend Steve E. at local deli D.Z. Akins. We talked of course about my current state of affairs, the separation, work, the web, search engines, the list. D.Z.A. is a great deli. Now, it’s not a Cantor’s or Carnegie Deli, but for San Diego, it rocks. I had something I’ve not had in a long time—a bagels and lox platter. What a sublime invention – this erector set of a breakfast. Assemble fat slices of fresh tomato, red onion, cream cheese, and of course the smoked salmon itself, all piled onto a bagel, and that is some great eating. Now, mind you, my appetite since this all started has been shot to hell. I’m continuing to lose weight too, less eating, more walking and exercise—feels good. But breakfast was inspiring.

Combine good food with good company—wonderful. Steve I met at a local user group some years ago at the Digital Design SIG —and it was he who sent me the Frank Zappa/Mothers ticket stub on my Zappa fan piece. We talked more about migrating the list off of yahoogroups. It’s going to be work, but I think it’s probably necessary. This summer, I keep seeing. When I can focus some attention on it, I need to figure out what features I’m using on yahoogroups and then begin to migrate.

After that, I went to racquetball. The problem is that the joint where I usually play was closed. So instead, my Aunt and I got our cars detailed. Banal, but my car looks great! For a 14 year old car that’s been cross-country twice and all over, it looks rejuvinated.

The next cancellation was the Barbecue I was supposed to go to today. The hostess got sick, so no party. So instead of making macaroni salad, I went to a thrift store and a comic book store.

Jenny called, left a message. She needs to come over and pick up some stray mail and clothes. Sometime in the next few days probably. We’ll see.

Tomorrow I should probably do laundry.

I think I’m through the crushing shock part of separation. Now I’m in the living part of it. I’m just trying to have a life, and be myself. It’s not impossible. I bet if you asked me that one month ago I’d have something entirely different to say. But life goes on.

Onward.

Mark Your Calendars
San Diego’s Taste of the Nation looks really good. A good cause and good food. It’ll be in May 2002.

Tamales Ancira’s
Jenny picked some great tamales up. Ancira’s is running ads on the local cable company, and they’re good. She got two each of chicken, beef, and raisin and nut. Fresh tasting, excellent texture. There’s a definite trend of Mexican food today. And that’s fine by me.