Posts from — May 2007

Kevin gave me some bad news over the weekend. He told me that La Salle Cigars over in Oakland was closing soon. I don’t have all the details- dispute with the landlord is the rumor – but they are closing down. It was one of the few places that had an area where you could smoke inside.

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I was browsing my blog feeds pretty quickly today using Google Reader and saw a pic of cherimoya on Tastespotting.

The Tastespotting pic goes to this LA Times article.

I thought I had a pic of Brad crushing some up for some afternoon drinks, but I guess not.

CHERIMOYAS, with their haunting perfume, creamy texture and a delicate flavor that combines notes of pear and passion fruit, are becoming more plentiful every year here during their season. For a few weeks, they’re not rarities (though they do look antediluvian), they’re piled high in farmers market stalls . so it’s time to stop thinking of them as simply treats out of hand and figure out wonderful ways to cook with them.



Or actually, not cook with them. Just slicing, pureeing or muddling the uncooked flesh preserves the integrity of this delicate fruit. They may look more like immature pine cones than anything tropical, but they’re easy to incorporate into desserts and cocktails . a melt-in-your-mouth tart, a creamy semifreddo, a breezy drink with a little rum and a little tequila.

Mmm

That Tastespotting blog is dangerous

Au revoir my old friend.

My old apex dvd player kicked the bucket a month ago. Well, it actually didn’t die completely but stopped playing DVDs. Well, it actually stopped playing “real” DVDs. It would still play burned (legally backed up) copies of DVDs, but I couldn’t watch the movies I was getting in from Netflix. And as we all know, it’s (sadly) a big part of my social life. I love me the DVDs!

When I started looking online at reviews of players, I thought I had found some I liked, but in the end I was walking down Clement street and remembered that the Chinese VCD/DVD store near me sold region-free players. So, I picked one that I thought would work well and for much less than $75 I was on my way.

I picked up a RJTech region free player and have been pretty happy with it. It’s played just about everything I’ve thrown at it– including AVI files! The few of you who know what that is will realize it’s useful.

So soon, I’ll have another DVDRoundup.

This is a good read about Migden.

In case you don’t know who Carole Migden is, she’s a state senator. She had introduced a bill (law now?) to punish people who talk on cell phones while they are driving.

So what? Well, she got in a bad wreck while driving. She rear ended a car or van in her state-supplied senatorial SUV (a brand new one too).

I originally saw the story on Fark.com with an “ironic” tag. Yes, I lol’d, no wait, I just heh’d.

I didn’t even know the state senators got issued cars. What’s that about?

There’s also a good follow-up rant on that same blog.

Yahoo News has a story about a survey that Pew ran:

NEW YORK – Spam messages are increasingly plaguing e-mail inboxes, but more Americans are accepting them as a fact of life, a new study finds.



Thirty-seven percent of U.S. e-mail users say they are getting more junk in their personal e-mail accounts, and 29 percent see an increase in their work accounts. About half say they have not noticed a change, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said in its study, released Wednesday.



Meanwhile, 28 percent of Internet users now say that spam is not a problem at all, up from 16 percent in June 2003.

Two things- 1) my coworkers have looked at Pew surveys and could take more than once. . . skewed results? Not too sure, the article does note that it was a phone survey to “1492 internet users”. 2) Maybe it’s a fact of life, but it’s still a big problem. The survey also didn’t have follow up questions about where the users noticed the spam (junk folder, bulk, spam filters?) and/or what they did about them (ignored, deleted, complained to ISPs, etc).

As my friend Christine says, “fail!”. Yeah, just in case you wanted to know, my May Challenge was/is a wash. As May rolled around work got (stayed?) crazy, and if I wasn’t getting early morning work calls, it rained almost all of the first week, and I know I’m making excuses, but didn’t get in a roll. Then the eviction thing . . . and well, now it’s the 21st.

Crazy.

I’ll have to try for June.

The sad thing is that I was going to try this as an exercise in discipline. I should’ve just put my head down and powered through. . . .

It’s not like I haven’t been riding though- I have been rolling about on theweekends looking for “for rent” signs.

Via one of the bball blogs I read . . . getting tired of defending my Spurs so here’s some dirty sunball

I wouldn’t click this first one at work . . but the 2nd one mocks it enough

In response to this video some guys made a nice parody here.

Yes, both links distrubed me a lawt. On irc we said–

<bang> figured you'd like that one
<bang> i think it only gets worse
<pak> nice link - can you say GAY?!
<eltejano> it's beyond that
<eltejano> freddy mercury clicked that link and even 
said it was a bit much
<eltejano> elton john just emailed, 
said that video made him look boring
<bang> haha

Thanks(?) for the links Shane

Well, the folks are off to Salta and Buenos Aires for a spell. They have rough plans to meet up for lunch or coffee with the South American Schwartzmans.

That’s a bit of a long story- but basically when the original Hermanos Schwartzmans were fleeing Eastern Europe long ago the twins broke up- one went to Texas, the other to South America. So supposedly we have peeps there. My Dad’s been emailing all of the Schwartzmans he can find down there. I’m not sure if he emailed the Brazilian Schwartzmans too (yes there are some). It turns out that one of my coworker’s Dad (from BA) has a really good friend who’s a Schwartzman too. Not sure if he’ll show up or if he even got an invite, but I’ll ask the coworker to forward along the information. Other than that, they’ll just be visiting Salta and eating Steak and Italian food. Mmmmm. Si tu apellido es Schwartzman, escribame y puedo dar tus datos a mi padre- o sea “vos” — Uds no dicen “tu”. No se ahorita donde van a juntar, imagino que habra algo en un cafe …. uyy, ya tengo sueños de Cafe Voltra– quiero helado de chocolate y dulce de leche.

After my office moved downtown a year ago I went to a store with Kevin. It was a newspaper/magazine store that I would’ve not noticed had he not pointed it out. In addition to magazines and newspapers they sell some sodas and some chocolate. It wasn’t until later after buying magazines one day that I realized he had introduced me to the most dangerous store ever.

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