Random Alias

bientôt? ô = ALT + 0244 Don't really know for sure if that's the character you're looking for, but even if it's not, you can probably find it on this page: http://www.starr.net/is/type/altnum.htm It's a pain, but you can enter in any charcter by holding down the <ALT> key and then entering the 4 digit character code. You can also use Character Map, found on the Start menu under Accessories, but about as much fun as pulling teeth. In Word you can enter accents similar to how the Mac handles it. Don't know why Microsoft doesn't just add that to Windows itself: é = Ctrl+' and then e Just ask Clippy "International characters?" and he'll bring up a list. C'mon, admit it, you know you love Clippy!

I'm intrigued as to why there are 7 issues per year. This seems different from the norm. Is there 1 special issue? You're forgetting the annual Cooks Illustrated Swimsuit issue.. Oh yeah, that was an awesome issue!

I no longer live in Seattle, but did from about '92 to '02. As I no longer live there, civic pride is not on the line. I can tell you about the weather. It is gray - a lot. You know all those beautiful pictures of Seattle with the Space Needle in the foreground, and Mt Rainier against clear blue skies in the background? Those were all taken at Kerry Park...in August, otherwise you'd never see Mt. Rainier. It's cloudy there for days at a time. You can go for weeks without seeing the sun. Sure it'll pop out from time to time, but if you're inside working, did it really happen? Just picture a unending monocromatic cover of gray clouds for 9 months out of the year. As a bonus, in the Winter the days are short, it gets dark at 4:00pm. This is what it looks like - a lot. It's also wet. As someone else said, it rains a little, a lot. You can walk around in the rain for hours and not really get wet, but take a step out onto your yard and you'll sink down a few inches as the ground will be saturated. The roads will be wet. Your car will be dirty. You will acquire a collection of light weight rain gear - probably from REI. Moss will grow on your roof. Moss will grow on your driveway. Moss will grow on everything, Seattle is very, very green. It's also chilly, not cold, but not warm either. After a few years, friends and family will visit and marvel at how cold you keep your house. You will visit them and marvel at how hot and humid it is. Gray skies, light mist, 45°. That's Seattle weather 9 months out of the year. The other 3 months can be extremely nice, but there's no guarantee, sometimes Summer forgets to happen, then again sometimes it happens more than it should. Aside from that, the traffic is the 2nd worst in the nation. It's not a joke, it can take 20 minutes to travel 1 mile, so pick where you live with the commute in mind. And of course, houses are expensive. Houses in the city even more so, but coming from New York it probably won't elicit the type of sticker shock someone from a smaller city might experience. That's about it, the weather and the traffic. Get past those things and it's a really nice place to live. Extremely low crime, friendly people, beautiful surroundings, lots of outdoor activities, good choice of restaurants, excellent seafood, and plenty of other reasons to live there. Take in the city, the Sound, and the mountains on a nice summer day and it's probably one of the nicest places you could be. Oh yeah, almost forgot, virtually no mosquitos and no ticks either.

They used to deliver it to your hourse. Go online to the Library's site, request some books, and about a week later they arrived in the mail. That was amazing...but it ended in '93 or so.

Let's see if I can remember the last week or so... Wednesday - Grilled sockeye salmon fillets, mashed potatoes with leeks & thyme, some type of vegetable Thursday - Grilled whole red snapper with herbs, mashed potatoes with leeks & thyme (heh, leftovers) Friday - Leg of Lamb, roasted potatoes using duck fat & thyme, steamed asparagus Saturday - Sockeye salmon fillet w/ balsamic glaze, lentils with fresh herbs, snap beans Sunday - Lamb stew (oh oh, leftovers x 2) Monday - Taco, taco. Burrito, burrito. Tuesday - grilled muscovy duck breast w/shallot reduction, lentils with not-so-fresh herbs (damn, more leftovers), steamed broccoli Tonight - Buffalo wings, carrot sticks with homemade bleu cheese dressing, upset stomach for dessert Tomorrow - Pepto Bismal shake topped with antacid tablet sprinkles (but the wings were worth it)

The fact that every stall sells the same things for the same prices is the main reason. I'm also not usually not overly impressed by the quality. The fruits and vegetables can be very good, but they are also at times (far too often) poor quality - yet amazingly still priced just the same. This is mostly in regards to the permanent stalls, the people that are there every week, as opposed to the people who show up just during a certain season - strawberriers, corn, peaches etc. The quality is much higher for the seasonal sellers, although even they somehow manage to amazinginly arrive at the same prices. My main basis for comparison is the Pike Place Market in Seattle. There, the quality and variety was consistently excellent, while the pricing not nearly as uniform. That isn't to say the Pike Place Market was inexpensive, but at least if you compared among the various vendors you could usually find what you were looking for on sale and it was almost always of excellent quality. The sellers at Pike Place, especially the permanent stalls, actually seemed to care about what they sold, I don't get that feeling from the NC State Farmer's Market, at least not from the permanent stalls. I've seen them put shit out for sale that I wouldn't take home if they gave it to me, and every permanent stall seems to sell the exact same varieties as the next. Alll that said, I still go to the State Farmer's Market fairly often, mostly for the smaller seasonal stalls, but overall it could be so much better. I keep meaning to go the Farmer's Market in Carborro, but it's a bit of a drive. Is it any different?

Home of the weekly Flea Market where you can enjoy boiled peanuts, roasted corn on a stick, and funnel cakes year round! And don't forget to pick up some tube socks while you're there. Although I suspect most might enjoy the State Farmer's Market a bit more. Over priced and over commercialized though it may be.

2 times a week - occasionally 3. Mondays almost always - I'm not motivated enough after the weekend to cook. Friday and Saturday almost never- prefer to avoid the most crowded times. Almost only eat out for Dinner, although one in a while on the weekends will grab lunch out. I never eat breakfast (usually not awake) and lunch is whatever is at hand. We go to a nice restaurant about once a month.

I don't know if most people would, but services like KaZaA show that plenty of people would rather steal IP than pay for it. Spend some time reading discussions about IP and you might be surprised to find plenty of people who think they're doing nothing wrong. Plagiarism is a war that can be fought and won, but IP theft...I'm not so sure. There are millions and millions of kids growing up in a world where they've never had to pay for software or music, and you can bet that given the chance they aren't going to treat books any differently. It's already easy enough to find a ton of copyrighted recipes on the web and unless something changes it'll be just as easy to find entire cookbooks in the future. Will I use a plagiarized recipe off the web? Yeah, sure I will. I even rationalize it by telling myself it's no different from checking out the cookbook from the library and copying the recipe myself. .....which makes me wonder if you copy a recipe out of a borrowed book, is that IP theft? I've never really considered it, but it probably is.

I will never again . . . ...eat a steak that has been unrefrigerated for a indeterminate amount of time. When I was in college I had a mini fridge whose electrical outlet shared duty with several other small appliances. Came home from class one day to find it unplugged, and figured, "Damn, I better eat that steak before it goes bad." Yeah, it smelled a little funny, tasted a little funky, but I was 18, poor, and stupid. No way was that steak going to waste. It only took a few hours before I knew something wasn't quite right - my stomach was in serious gurgle mode, with major chills accompanying each grumble. It wasn't much longer before I knew something was very wrong - I'll leave those symptoms to your imagination. There's nothing more fun than a serious case of food poisoning during your freshman year in a dorm. On the positive side, I was able to skip about a week's worth of classes without any guilt.

I wonder if having a 'sophisticated' palate has anything to do with being a ....or not. Maybe you can't appreciate certain foods unless you can really taste them. Then again, maybe if you could really taste certain foods, you wouldn't eat them. So how many 'sophisticates' are 'super-tasters'? All it takes to find out is a hole punch, some blue food coloring, and a magnifying glass. Unfortunately, at the moment I'm short the blue food coloring. So c'mon. Take the test and throw down. Let's see who's got the goods and who doesn't. It's kind of like SAT scores for your tongue. Tongue test identifies 'super-tasters' A simple tongue test can tell people if they are a "super-taster" or not. Around 35% of women are super-tasters, compared with just 15% of men, US research has shown. (Continues....)

looks more like a porno-pig to me. I can see that...

It is hard to strike that perfect balance between popping as many kernels as nuclearly possible while not scorching a single piece. The popping slows in frequency, you tilt your ear just so to hear every last pop while counting the seconds between. One-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand, four-one thousand...and then that first acrid whiff of burnt popcorn hits and you realized you pushed it just a little too far. One too many seconds waited; time for a new bag. In the end you play it safe and lay up on that second bag. Then again I can't remember ever having finished an entire bag of microwave popcorn, so why can't I just play it safe with the first bag? I guess I just live for the challenge of it all.

1 cup Butter - Judges 5:25, He asked water, and she gave him milk; she brought forth butter 2 cups Sugar - Jeremiah 6:20, 20. To what purpose cometh there to me incense from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? 3 1/2 cups Flour - First Kings 4:22, And Solomon's provision for one day was thirty measures of fine flour 2 cups Raisins - First Samuel 30:12, And they gave him a piece of a cake of figs, and two clusters of raisins 1 cup Almonds - Numbers 17:8, brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds. 6 Eggs - Isaiah 10:14, And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left 1 tlbs Honey - Exodus 16:31, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Pinch Salt - Leviticus 2:13, And every oblation of thy meat offering shalt thou season with salt 2 tsp Baking Powder - I Corinthians 5:6, Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump Spices - I Kings 10:2, And she came to Jerusalem with a very great train, with camels that bare spices,

Growing up my Dad had an Inside-The-Shell Electric Egg Scrambler . I don't remember him ever using it except to see if it actually worked and to amaze the occasional visitor. What were the point of those again? Following a microplane and an inversion bldner, my most used kitchen gadget is probably a watermelon cuber. If you think it's hard to cube an egg, you need to try a watermelon.

This thread inspired me to try my hand at biscuits again this weekend. 2nd time ever making them from scratch (as opposed to using Bisquik / Pioneer / etc.) This time I got my baking soda / baking powder issues straightened out. The biscuits were about half again taller and needless to say, didn't taste like baking soda. I used buttermilk this time, whereas last time I used half cream / half milk. I think I will go with the latter next time, or at least not full buttermilk as they were a touch too sour for my taste. I used this recipe. Next step is to brave some country ham on 'em. Any suggestions as to where to buy some decent country ham by the slice? I see it in the grocery store, but it sometimes looks a little strange. As to frozen biscuits, I have tried the Pilsbury brand several times. I'll keep an eye out for Mary B's brand. As easy as biscuits were to make, there's still no way making them could ever become a regular part of my morning.

Azeotrope - a liquid mixture that is characterized by a constant minimum or maximum boiling point which is lower or higher than that of any of the components Oh. Now it all makes sense.

The problem with making biscuits in the morning is that morning generally occurs too early in the day. I am not a morning person. That last time I made biscuits for breakfast my sleep addled brain switched the baking powder with the baking soda. Have you ever done that? The final product really doesn't look much different, and you can even eat a bite or two before that bitter taste hits you. Anyone know if biscuit dough will keep in the refrigerator overnight?

Thank you. Ah, the English language. It's a beautiful thing. There's really no need to thank him. He's a Gamecock, slow is the only way they can talk. Which is a good thing, since "Do you want fries with that?" has to be said slowly to be understood over a drive thru speaker. (don't you just love the SEC?)

Asking people about Barbecue in NC is just asking for trouble. Lextion Collection - Allen & Son This a classical joint, folks, serving the real thing! Run by Mr. Allen's son for over thirty years, it serves hand-chopped barbecue made from shoulders in the classical way over hardwood coals. The vinegar and pepper finishing sauce is unique -- a little eastern, a little western, and a little butter! And, the hush puppies are outstanding. Shinola NC Barbecue - Allen & Son Having eaten there several times, I've found it to be only slightly above-average. It's not as good as Bullock's over in Durham, but it's a mite closer to our Carrboro/Chapel Hill domiciles, and it's a nice change of pace when you've seen all those autographed celebrity photos one time too many. We tend to go to the Chapel Hill location, which is actually way out in the country north of the "State Zoo" (what Ol' Jesse calls this "liberal" college town--but of course The Man We Love to Hate probably thinks Rush and Newt are liberals), and the staff here claim that this is the best of the three. The building is poorly heated, cinder-block, and you're just as likely to be seated in a plastic chair which can made for chilly eatin' in winter. But the rural setting alone seems to improve the flavor; at least for now until the real estate agents strike a deal with someone in local government and build some toxic dump or yuppie condos. The service is pretty slack; the whole band ate here before our March show at the Lizard and Snake and several times our meals were botched. I was hung over, thanks to Jason's lovely gift of a gallon of cheap wine the night before and I was counting on the barbeque to get me through. I learned a powerful lesson: Don't believe the Mayor. Like all politicians and intellectuals, everything he says is serving some self-justification. Greasy southern breakfasts and barbeques are *not* good hangover cures. If you don't believe me, ask Anthony if you can borrow the videotape of our show that night. Ugghh Kent's North Carolina-Style BBQ Pag - Allen & Son Most other NC-Style-BBQ review sites on the Internet give Allen & Son BBQ in Chapel Hill either their highest or next-to-highest review ratings, but to save me, I don't see how. I've been there three times, and three times I've been served barbeque so terrible I literally paid for it and walked out leaving it on the table untouched, not even bothering to ask for a styrofoam container to bring it home so my dog could eat it, because I figured that Ben My Dog would probably turn up his nose at it. The only reasons I can come up with as to why and how it stays in business at all is that Chapel Hill is home to a large non-NC-native population because of it's a "company town" mainly populated by the students and workers at the University Of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), many of whom are non-native transplants from other regions who've not discovered nearby Bullock's BBQ in Durham and other sources of truly great NC Holy Grub.

I live in NC these days. Those gray days finally wore me down. When I lived in WA it was out near Sammamish as I wanted an East / West commute to work. I'm not sure how anyone could stay sane traveling the dreaded S-Curves on I-405 everyday!

Almost Live did get kind of lame at the end of it's run, but had a few funny skits along the way. Speedwalker in which a superhereo played by Bill Nye (The Science Guy) has on some balltastic nylon "Speed Walking" shorts Kegger in the Field which was just an excuse to make fun of South King County allegedly being full of rednecks. Oriental Rug Mart is having a going out of business sale....again....and this time they really, really mean it. A lot of it was not so inside jokes about the region that were lost if you were watching on Comedy Central while living somewhere else. If it hadn't been for Almost Live I never would have known they had keggers down in Kent and speaking of South King County.... While the Space Needle may get all the revolving restaurant glory in Seattle, just a short drive south in beatiful Seatac is the area's best revolving restaurant. The Seatac Holiday Inn sports a casual dining room on it's top floor where you can enjoy a revolving meal for far less than it would cost at the Space Needle. Not to mention, that after dinner entertainment is just a short, safe walk down the street as everybody knows that all the area's best exotic dancers work in and around International Blvd. Seatac Holiday Inn Full Service hotel with 260 well-appointed deluxe guest rooms, located across from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Complimentary 24 hour shuttle to/from the airport for hotel guests. Free parking during your hotel stay. Order room service or Dine in our beautiful revolving restaurant on the 12th floor with spectacular views of Mt. Rainier, and enjoy singing servers.

So restaurants should set up a discussion board such as this. Imagine the impact that would have. You go to a restaurant's web site and have a discussion about how you ate there last nite and the tuna was overcooked. To some extent this board and others like it already serve that purpose, but I would bet the average diner isn't Internet savy enough to find them yet. However, 10 years from now (or less) it's going to be a different story. One good example of this today is Reseller Ratings. When you're shopping for computer parts and going for that lowest priced source, this site is a good stop. ....and you don't even want to consider the day when people are able to have wireless real time video from cameras small enough to be easily concealed. Why write about your dinner at the French Laundry when you can broadcast it live to the Net?

My wife is outof town this weekend so I probably won't be trying any of the suggested restaurants until she returns, but.... ....After dropping her off at the airport, I had to run to PetSmart to pick up some chow for the dog and noticed a new Chinese restaurant called New Asia. This is located in a new shopping center off Glenwood (70) near Alexander. Three word review: Don't Go There It's 50/50 take out and dine in. so I picked up something to go, and I just finished throwing it out. I wish I had my digital camera (my wife took it with her) so I could have taken a picture. Considering my description from above, it was comical how much oil was pooled on top of the half inch deep puddle of brown sauce. And the shrimp, mmmmm, the shrimp had that lovely just out of the sea iodine flavor that you don't often get to enjoy this far from the coast. I choked down two bites before I decided my health was worth more than $7. On the positive side, New Asia also has a Sushi bar. Obviously with shrimp like that, I can't wait to tuck into a big ol' plate of their Nigiri Sushi. I've already got it penciled into my schedule; I managed to squeeze it in between a last phone call to my parents and my appointment with death via food poisoning. .....The Salmon mousse!