Batter Blaster: A video review

I previously alluded to the Spousal Unit's modest skills in the kitchen. An exciting discovery at Walmart gave us an opportunity to expand her repertoire and review the product:


Update: The Google screenshot below could be the basis of a fascinating Venn diagram.

The Pickin' Chicken Race Riots of 1968 (or: Happy Birthday, Dad!)

Today's my dad's birthday. I'm on the road and can't be with him today, but Happy birthday, Dad! Check out his Mail Pouch Tobacco "barn," and when you're done, watch the video below, of the Pickin' Chicken Race Riots of 1968.

(If you've heard him tell this story before, watch it again anyway. Part of the charm is hearing it frequently. Or so I was told growing up.)

The SACS Report, Episode 5

The SACS Report was a public-access cable television show produced by the Southern Alleghenies Computer Society of Johnstown, PA, in the early 1990s. For more background, please see the entry for Episode 2.

Episode 5 aired February 3, 1993. In this episode, we have another specimen from my awesome sweater collection: a white V-neck item, paired once again with aggressively patterned socks. My guests in this episode are Jery Allison and Geoff Ford, fellow SACS officers who discuss the organization's plans for the new year.

Jery, who was the sysop of a local BBS, provided an overview of the local BBS scene, while Geoff announced an upcoming BBS demo day at the Galleria Mall. We also discuss "the next biggest thing in computers," the CD-ROM and multimedia. Jery opines that CD-ROM drives have become so inexpensive that anyone can afford one... watch the episode to find out how cheap Geoff's new drive was!

The panelists also discuss the sizes (physical and capacity) of the latest hard drives, and compare these modern marvels with the primitive disks of yesteryear. I lament dealers who try to sell customers "more computer than they need." What home user could possibly make good use of those new Pentium chips?

On a more touching note, Jery recalls participating in the SaudiNet email system during the 1990–91 Gulf War, relaying messages from home to the troops, and back. This email system was technologically similar to FidoNet, which Jery also discusses. Imagine sending email to someone around the world, and having them read it in just a few hours or days!

__
                  /  \
                 /|oo \
                (_|  /_)
                 _`@/_ \    _
                |     | \   \\
                | (*) |  \   )) 
   ______       |__U__| /  \//
  / FIDO \       _//|| _\   /
 (________)     (_/(_|(____/

On imitating the masters

Colman Andrews, in a dialog with Ruth Reichl on her blog, said:

I do think it’s interesting, though, that people (“our” people, the serious food folk) tend to think that they should be able to—that they have the right to be able to—reproduce the most elaborate and labor-intensive of restaurant dishes, when they would never think themselves capable of playing serious music or painting museum-quality art or imagine themselves capable of leaping into Scorcese or Coppola territory with their Flips.

I realized that, to some extent, I do have that belief, and I’d never thought about why.

The Occasional WTF #4

This is another one from the archives.  It looks like it’s been fixed on Google Maps.  Click to embiggen.

Eating Parker: Grilled loin chops

It was time for the annual question:  What should I cook* for my birthday? I had a bottle of a birth-year wine, a 1976 Burgess Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon that I wanted to drink this year, figuring that it wouldn’t get any better at this point, so I needed something that would pair with the wine.

US fights “rogue MILF elements”

Via @slonkak:

It’s been touted as a rare U.S. military success against Islamic extremists in the so-called global war on terror.

…

Those efforts further paid off when the country’s largest Islamic insurgent group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) – some of whose members are believed to be closely allied with both Jemaah Islamiyah  and Abu Sayyaf – officially disavowed terrorism and re-engaged in on-again, off-again peace talks with the Philippines government.

Full story at MSNBC.