Filed under: tidbit
Does anyone know of a ‘degrees of separation’ tool for Flickr? Back in the day when I used to use LiveJournal regularly I was always amused by Pete Krawczyk’s LiveJournal Connect tool (random users manningkrull and toddalcott used for demonstration purposes only). I could never find anyone that was over five relationships away from my journal – even random users in Russia had some tenuous connection to me.
Anyway, I know Flickr has published a great bit of API junk, and I was wondering if anyone had done this yet. I couldn’t find an example in a few minutes of searching teh intarnets so I figured I’d ask you.
Filed under: tidbit
I found this in my parents’ spice rack. It’s absolutely fascinating to me, though I think they were embarrassed by its age and what that implies about their culinary endeavors. I love the colors, the fonts, the styling – everything about the visuals is fantastic and just retro enough to be cool.
I also love the use of the words “Sea Food” and “Prepared Mustard” on the back label. Those really drive home the temporal disparity we got going on here.
But wait – the best part is the 79¢ stamped on the bottom. Now, this is very crude calculation here, but according to Froogle the average price of a bottle of tarragon around this size is $4.00-ish. If I dump that information into an inflation calculator and work backwards, it turns out that $4.00 in 2005 dollars is $0.79 in 1970 dollars. I can’t believe that this bottle of Tarragon is from 1970 … or is it?!
Dunh dunh dunnnnnnn-n-n-n-n-h!
and of course, you can view the larger size for better detail
Filed under: tidbit
Tonight was one of those nights on the internet where I have no idea how I ended up where I ended up, but I was certainly glad to have arrived there. I originally started reading the LiveJournal of Todd Alcott (a writer of things, apparently) because of his commentary on Venture Bros episodes. Deeper in his archives I found really good words on one of my favorite topics: movies by the Coen Brothers.
I find these analyses fascinating because I am a very simple man. I don’t enjoy looking for symbolism, I am terrible at picking apart allegory, metaphor goes right over my head, and I just do an all-around poor job at understanding what point a writer is trying to get across to me. Now, I’m not so dense as to be unable to understand the underlying meaning once someone relates it to me – I just don’t take the time (or am perhaps just unable to) pick it out for myself.
That’s why reading the following is so fascinating:
The Hudsucker Proxy
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Raising Arizona
The Big Lebowski
… it really explains to me why I like these movies, or the Coen Brothers’ work in general. It also proves I am a Lazy American who would prefer someone else do my work.
Thank you, Todd Alcott.
RECIPE TIME! ARE YOU NOT EXCITED?!
Okay, this is something that I didn’t cook. That’s right, I didn’t even cook this stuff. It’s someone else’s cooking and it’s SO GOOD that I have to blog about it anyway. Dad whipped this up sometime over the holidays and I just now wrested the recipe(s) away from him. I have to share! He’ll understand one day.
Oh, one last thing before I get into this – I do not, as a rule, enjoy eggplant. I mean, if someone makes it I’ll eat it, but I certainly wouldn’t cook it myself, and I can’t even imagine paying a restaurant to cook it for me. Having said that, this is an eggplant recipe that I fully intend to duplicate at some point in the near future. That’s how good it was.
But first, the chickie-bawk.
Lemon-caper chicken
1 1/2 lbs chicken breast tenderloins, each beat nice and flat
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
3 tbsp butter, divided
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup dry white wine or vermouth
3 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp chopped Italian parsley
2 minced garlic cloves
2 tbsp capers
garnish: lemon wedges, parsley
1.) Cut chicken into 1/2 inch thick slices (if necessary). Place between waxed paper and flatten with meat mallet until 1/8 inch thick.
2.) Dredge chicken in combined flour, salt, and pepper.
3.) Melt 2 tbsp butter with oil in skillet over medium high heat. Cook chicken in batches; about 1 1/2 mins. on each side or until golden.
4.) Remove and keep warm.
5.) Deglaze skillet with remaining butter, wine, and lemon juice. Cook 2 minutes or just until heated through.
6.) Stir in parsley, garlic and capers; heat through.
Spoon over chicken. Add garnish if desired.
And now the faboo eggplant. I’m not gonna tell you where Dad got the recipe. Think space aliens, think Italian grandmother, think creative burst of inspiration, think dusty old magazine … think whatever you want. It’s his secret, not mine.
The First Eggplant of Which I Have Intentionally And Emphatically Had Seconds
1 cup Italian-style bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
3 tablespoon sesame seeds (I used toasted)
2-3 tablespoons olive oil
1.) Preheat oven to 400
2.) Combine ingredients and place in shallow bowl
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 eggs beaten with a splash of water
1 large firm eggplant, thinly sliced
3.) Dust the eggplant slices in the flour, then dip in the egg mixture.
4.) Press into the breadcrumb mixture.
5.) Arrange eggplant on a large nonstick cookie sheet and bake in the center of the oven until golden all over, 15 to 17 minutes. (no need to turn or broil)
While the eggplant was baking Dad sauteed some garlic in olive oil and added that to some store-bought bruschetta and heated it all up in a little saucepan. Man, was that ever awesome.
So!
Go and create, my children, go and create. You will not be disappointed.
Filed under: photography
How is it possible that I’ve gone 30 years without ever hearing of Chema Madoz? He’s a Spanish photographer (and more) and right now my mind is completely blown by everything on that page I just linked to. I’m no high-falutin’ art expert so I won’t go into detail, but just imagine me using words like juxtaposition of form and intense super-(sur)real imagery and so forth. Seriously. I … I’m kind of ashamed, actually. I should have been salivating over this guy’s work from the get-go. I recognize one or two of the images, but never knew there was a whole body of work of his and that they were all this good.
Filed under: tidbit
Hey, so I totally stole this post from another … I dunno, maybe it’s a blog. Regardless, here’s the condensed version.
The gubmint allows you to check your credit report for free once per year from each of the three credit reporting agencies. That means if you space it out right you can get a report every four months. Go to annualcreditreport.com and get started.
Actually, first, go to your calendar software of choice and make a yearly recurring entry for January (TransUnion), May (experian), and September (Equifax). That way you’ll remember which one you checked last and which one is up next.
Do this. Be safe. Be good.
And now, if you want to read the whole long article I just stole this from, go ahead.
Okay, so here’s the new weirdness from me. Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve noticed this before during the many long and fortunate years I’ve been on this earth, but I’d never really considered it in any serious way until recently. See, we’re used to our eyes being different in terms of visual acuity, right? How many of you with glasses or contacts have the same prescription in both lenses? Probably not many. Yes, yes, I’m talking about my eyeballs again. Anyway, yes, sure, we’re used to one eye being slightly different than the other or at least we’re used to it in terms of clarity and focus and so forth.
But …
see, my eyes see two different sets of color. I swear it’s true. I also know it sounds very strange, and I also have noticed that sometimes it is more pronounced, sometimes less so. I took a very few short moments to whip up the following graphic to illustrate my point. I apologize in advance, Henry, for the terrible graphic design. I wish I had more time but I must inform the world about my gross deformity IMMEDIATELY, don’t you know.
What you see below is the image as it was taken from my camera (using a custom white balance to try and obtain maximum ‘reality’) and then two images, one portraying what I seem to see from each eye. Click on it to make it bigger.
My left eye at its worst has a slight magenta tint to it. For those of you with Photoshop skillz it’s as if someone chose to adjust color balance, selected ‘highlights’, and moved the slider ever so slightly to the left.
No, I swear I’m not making this up.
The right eye sees more blue. Again, adjust color balance, select ‘highlights’, move slider to the right. Convenient how you have to move the sliders in the direction of the appropriate eye, no? No? Oh.
Anyway, the image above is an exaggeration, of course. My color disparity is not that pronounced. Sometimes it’s almost impossible for me to tell. Other days I’ll have closed one eye for some reason and when I reopen it I’m reminded that the whole color balance of the scene has perceptibly shifted.
Now, of course, you know what’s coming. Your involvement, that’s what. A five-second Google search returned no results for “seeing different color in each eye”. Of course I put it in quotes so that I wouldn’t really get any results, making me seem important and unique. But am I? Does this happen to you?
—————-
In other news, I just wanted to share that I am constantly consumed by low-grade anxiety about photography. I spend most of my waking hours (outside of work, of course, because work is boring and I don’t want to take photographs there) looking at things and thinking that I want to capture them. Immediately follows the whole, “But … I don’t … I don’t know how to capture that correctly. I know it can be done. I’ve seen pictures like that. But … I … I don’t know … I don’t know how to capture that correctly. But I know it can be done. But I don’t know how.”
Did you ever want to know how I spend my time? There y’go.
Filed under: tidbit
It’s a strange feeling when something you do regularly, something you do for fun, turns unexpected and affects you more than you intended.
I received a new lens for Christmas and I spent a good portion of the day shooting pics like crazy just trying to get a feel for it. I haven’t checked how many pictures I took, but it was definitely more than necessary.
I shot the tree, I shot the examination of gifts, and I stood there and documented every step while my mother made her pecan pie. I took pictures of everything.
When I finally got home and reviewed my pictures, the one of Mom’s hands holding the eggs caught me by surprise. I actually had to skip over it because I was confused by what I was feeling, didn’t know how to deal with it. I left it alone for a day or so.
I finally went back and took a long look at it. It’s a spur of the moment capture – she just held out the eggs for a second, I snapped, we went on in our conversation and pie-making. It wasn’t posed in the traditional sense, I didn’t ask her to hold them a certain way. It was just in the moment.
The more I looked at it the more I realized I’d reached a new thing, a new place. I was looking at a picture that actually moved me – one of my pictures. That had never happened to me before. The emotions were what confused me the first time I saw it. I’m used to making images, some kind of tiny art perhaps, not feelings.
I have memories of being a child and sitting in church, not listening to the sermon, just holding Mom’s hand, looking at it, feeling how soft her skin was. It wasn’t so much thoughts of “these are the hands that cook for me, that comfort me, that put on the bandages when I scrape my leg,” but more strange realization of detail, how just one part of the human body can sum up the whole of what they mean to you.
This picture just made me realize that I hadn’t really looked at my mom’s hands in forever. It made me remember what it was like to be a kid. It made me think about who my mom is, and how much she means to me.
Somehow this picture just says more to me about my mother than any portrait ever could. I never expected to do this to myself. I could never have set out to do it on purpose.
I’m grateful that it happened the way it did.
Filed under: tidbit
This post started out full of details, but those get boring, and quick. Instead I’m just gonna say that the past two weeks have been full of works, weddings, finals, houseguests, and everythings else. I’m pooped.
I had the ENTIRE day off from everything today, though, and was able to spend it doing whatever I wanted to, which really boils down to a whole lot of nothing. Best news: I finally get over to see the doctor, and that constant nagging low-grade pain I’ve had in my side for almost a week and a half is NOT a kidney stone, and is NOT intestinal parasites, but apparently just some pulled muscle that I am (for whatever sadistic reason) not allowing to relax and heal. Better that than the gut worms, I say.
MMmmmmm. Worms.
Anyway, I’m just very excited about finally being truly relaxed. It feels so good. In fact, it’s time to go relax some more. Amazingly enough I’m making progress in all the books I wanted to read. Funny how free time allows that.
I hope that every single one of you had a day just as good as mine. I wish you all the best. Should I forget to write again before Christmas, I wish you all the happiest of December Twenty-Fifthsths.
EDIT! I totally forgot to mention that once again I’ve had someone (an out-of-towner co-employee) tell me that when I speak I sound just like Jeff Goldblum. I couldn’t be more pleased.
EDIT EDIT! Ah-HA! I’ve finally found my favorite Jeff Goldblum / Apple commerical. Someone has uploaded it since the last time I went looking for it. This is …
you know, for you this is probably totally boring. But for me? Sometimes I stand in the mirror and talk normally and pretend that I am indeed Jeff Goldblum.
He even rolls up his sleeves like I do. I think … this means something.
Filed under: recipe
Another Tuesday, another recipe. I don’t know where the parents got this one – it’s torn out of some magazine. I asked if there was anything they wanted, and they just wanted this. Easy for me as I didn’t have to think, just to cook.
Turns out this was far tastier than I expected. I was a bit taken aback at the thought of raw ramen noodles, but I broke them down pretty small and it turned out ultra-tasty. No more crunchy than peanut bits, if you need a comparison.
Anyway, on with the recipe. I don’t have anything else to say other than YUM.
Thai Beef Salad with Crispy Noodles
1 sirloin steak (about 1 lb)
Salt and pepper
3 tbsp water
2 tbsp soy sauce (UGH)
2 tbsp honey
2 tbsp peanut butter
Juice from one lime (approx. 2 tbsp)
4 cups coleslaw mix (apparently available in the bagged salad section or something like that)
1 tbsp chopped cilantro (NOTICE: THIS DID NOT MAKE IT INTO MY RECIPE)
1 tbsp chopped fresh basil (I would love to have had Thai basil (you know, the one with the purple stalks and green leaves) but it is not readily available in Cookeville)
1 3-oz package ramen noodles (save or discard flavor packet), broken into tiny bits
1.) Season steak with salt and pepper
2.) In a grill pan or cast-iron skillet, sear the steak over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes per side for medium-rare. You want your steak to be medium-rare otherwise you’re not human.
3.) Transfer cooked steak to a plate to rest – covering it is not a bad idea either.
4.) In a small bowl, whisk together the water, soy sauce (UGH), honey, peanut butter, and lime juice.
5.) In a large bowl, combine the slaw mix, basil, and peanut dressing. Toss ’till covered.
6.) Add crushed dry ramen noodles and toss again.
7.) Cut the steak into thin slices and distribute amongst the salads.
Should make four good bowls or so. Really tasty. I urge you to try this recipe.
I also urge you to be nice to your fellow humans, as the holidays are upon us, and you’re bound to be confronted with some total idiots. Just remember, they’re only trying to shop for presents just like you.