twothirds

Worst Buy

2008-04-13T10:41:00.001-07:00

Some day the employees at Best Buy will learn how to pick up the correct non-defective merchandise for their in-store pick-up. So far they are oh-for-two.

Thank you for turning a five-minute trip into an hour.

Cynar

2008-04-06T13:04:00.001-07:00

Cynar is the latest addition to the liquor cabinet. Made by the Campari group, this lesser known liquor infused with 13 herbs and plants is a similar concept to its red brother (bitter apéritif). In theory you can substitute Cynar for Campari and some will swap it out for Italian Vermouth.

To get a true sense of my new purchase, my first Cynar cocktail was on the rocks with an Orange slice before dinner. The drink has a great bittersweet balance and no one herb or plant overpowers. If you can stomach Campari, your palate will accept Cynar. While Cynar will not displace Campari as my favorite spirit, it will see plenty of action in the coming months.

Some interesting Cynar drinks found on the interweb include:

Tom Waits was Here
(unknown quantities)

Cynar

Jack Daniels

Triple Sec

Cin-cyn

1 ounce artichoke-flavored liqueur, such as Cynar brand

1 ounce gin

1 ounce sweet vermouth

Dash bitters, either Peychaud or Angostura brand

2 orange wedges, sliced 1/2-inch thick

Cynar Biere

1 oz Cynar

1/3 oz lemon syrup

14 oz beer

Choke Artist
from The Art of the Bar, by Jeff Hollinger and Rob Schwartz

1 ounce Cynar

1 ounce Gran Centenario Anejo tequila

½ ounce fino sherry

5 dashes Regan’s Orange Bitters No. 6

Extra-wide orange twist for garnish

Combine the Cynar, tequila, and sherry in an ice-filled mixing glass and stir. Add the bitters to a chilled snifter and roll around to coat the glass. Pour the Cynar and tequila mixture into the snifter. Garnish with the orange twist.

Download movies or download movies?.

Spring Negroni Update -- Town Sucks

2008-03-29T10:50:00.001-07:00

I had a Negroni last night at Town in San Carlos. Gawd--they butchered it. I think they actually gave me an Americano (less the soda) given it lacked a kick and the drink was on the brown side. It was also served with a lemon twist. At least they were able to redeem themselves with a Chimay served in the proper glass.

I still cannot believe how many bartenders butcher such a simple drink. They are able to whip out satisfying chick-tinis with ten different ingredients and please the lady folk, but they cannot hit the mark on a drink with three ingredients of equal parts? Pretty soon I will have to start interviewing bartenders before I order a drink.

So far, my biggest Negroni pet peeves are:

Serving Up
This drink is to be served on the rocks. Given the red hue of the drink, it can easily be mistaken for a fruity chick-tini. No self respecting man wants to be thought of as a chick-tini drinker.

Wrong Twist
There are a few different variations on the proper style of orange to go with the drink. The best recipes call for a flamed orange peel. I have only seen that done at one old-school bar in NYC. Chances are you will never see this done as it is labor intensive and most bartenders don't give a crap.

Other variations call for an orange slice. This is quite acceptable as well, but not my preferred variation.

My favorite "middle ground" is an orange twist. Although, I am not talking about one of those pre-sliced twists that have been sitting around since the shift start at 4PM. I want a fresh twist sliced out of an orange with my glass in immediate range of all the orange zest oil that will shoot out. This gives such a favorable sweet subtleness to the drink. Mmmm. Orange oil.

Wrong Ingredients
Given the drink is three ingredients of equal parts, how can anyone manage to f- this up? Seriously.....1.5 oz gin, 1.5 oz sweet vermouth, 1.5 oz gin. Done!

Too bad it is only 10AM. If it were past Noon, I would mix myself up a favorable Negroni :)

Sun SPARC-Enterprise M5000

2008-03-28T12:46:00.001-07:00

The main content authoring server for sun.com has been a Sun Fire 4810. (Yeah--it's embarrassingly old.) While this machine is still holding up strong (amazingly), it's time for some new iron. I think the SPARC Enterprise M5000 will do the job.

First, a quick and dirty before/after benchmark*

M5000

jm___@s___new:~
> ptime gcc hello-world.c

real        0.050
user        0.022
sys         0.014
jm___@s___new:~
> ptime ./a.out
Hello World
real        0.005
user        0.000
sys         0.001

4810

jm___@s___:~
> ptime gcc hello-world.c

real        0.148
user        0.002
sys         0.018
jm___@s___:~
> ptime ./a.out
Hello World
real        0.040
user        0.001
sys         0.005

* Yeah. This is one of the lamest benchmarks you can run for a multi-processor machine. I cannot wait to do some real application benchmarking.

uname output

uname -a is: SunOS s___new 5.10 Generic_120011-14 sun4u sparc SUNW,SPARC-Enterprise

64 GB Memory

Memory size: 65536 Megabytes

32 Hardware Threads @ 2150 MHz

============ Psrinfo ==========
Status of virtual processor 0 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:19.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 1 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 2 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 3 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 8 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 9 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 10 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 11 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 16 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 17 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 18 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 19 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 24 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 25 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 26 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 27 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 32 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 33 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 34 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 35 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 40 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 41 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 42 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 43 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 48 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 49 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 50 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 51 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 56 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 57 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 58 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.
Status of virtual processor 59 as of: 03/29/2010 17:47:03
  on-line since 03/29/2010 16:44:20.
  The sparcv9 processor operates at 2150 MHz,
	and has a sparcv9 floating point processor.

I am a Hot Russian Chick

2008-03-27T17:34:00.001-07:00

It appears some spammers have used my email address as a "from" for some spam messages. Rats! At least I am a [hot] russian chick. I would hate to be viagra.

From: "Russian women" <jed@mich__wicz.org>
Subject: Still single? look at my profile, Olga from Russia

Hello!

Spring has finally come! Romance is in the air!
Beautiful and still single (!!!) Russian and Ukrainian women are eager to meet you! They have placed their profiles at SingleRussianGirls dating site and waiting for your emails.
Don't loose time and come get registered FREE at http://HELL___IRLS.INFO/?idAff=237

Expensive Ride

2008-03-02T15:12:00.000-08:00

I had an expensive ride the other day. While clipping into my pedals, part of the front cracked. I can still clip in, but it is time for new pedals.

I am sticking with my beloved Time RXS pedals. The cleats are walkable, the pedals slip in easy and the are low [no] maintenance. Sure they may crack after 2-3 years, but I guess I can live with that tax.

drugstore.com "gets it"

2008-03-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

"That's weird, I'm out of my happy pills. But didn't I put in an order a few weeks ago?"

My regular order from drugstore.com was lost in the ether. Kudos to drugstore.com for "getting it". I called them up about the lack of goods on a Saturday and within five minutes:

They confirm it should have arrived

They give me the option of refund, store credit or reshipment

The delivery is upgraded to three-day shipping for free

An email confirmation is waiting in my inbox before I hang up

Wow. If only everyone on the interweb did business this way.

Mission Accomplished

2008-03-01T16:29:00.000-08:00

I wonder if they will figure out my new mailing address.

Deal or No Deal

2008-02-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

It is debatable whether or not people really watch this show, but if you take away the eye candy, does anyone watch it?

TODO: FIXME

2008-01-31T17:17:00.000-08:00

A webform was not working for me on a random website. Hmm. Let's see what the javascript console says...

Yup. There's your problem!

Is Consoleshop.com a Scam Site?

2008-01-22T21:06:00.000-08:00

I ordered a multi-console connector from consoleshop.com toward the end of 2007. Guess who charged my credit card, sent me a shipping confirmation and ignored inquiries about order status? Yup--consoleshop.com.

It looks like I might be requesting my first chargeback. They have until Thursday...

Why did I not see this before I ordered? I really suck at the Internet.

Update: Chargeback initiated. Good thing I used a "virtual" credit card number.

Update++ (31 Jan 2008): Holy crap! The merchandise finally arrived. It only took a month to get here. While the site may not be a true scam, it sure as hell is sketchy and not worth the hassle.

Side Chain Steak Sandwich

2008-01-19T17:24:00.000-08:00

For a holiday dinner this year we made Beef Wellington. For the meat, I purchased a whole Filet Mignon from Costco which I butchered into a large roast for the Wellington. In addition to some left-over steaks that went into the freezer, I also picked out all the edible meat from the "side chain," the gnarley grizzly piece that runs along the side of the tenderloin.

With a Good Eats episode as my muse, I raided the freezer for the chain and made some yummy steak sandwiches with cheddar cheese and semi-carmalized onions. Semi? Yeah, I was hungry. I did not want to wait the full 45 minutes for the onions to turn into a gooey mess of goodness. I just wish I had some mushrooms in the fridge to complete the sandwich. Oh well--next time.

Cheese Note: Yeah, cheddar is not "traditional", but I have had odd cheddar obsessions recently. Next time I will go for the traditional cheese whiz.

Now if only I had a Tastykake and Yuengling Lager to compliment the meal

Negroni Failures

2008-01-19T11:09:00.000-08:00

The past few months have seen many failures on the Campari front. I should just pre-print the drink recipe and hand it out when I make the order to cut out all the overhead.

Isa SF

Isa actually had a Negroni on the drinks menu. "Sweet!" Unfortunately, they only have a beer and wine license so it was actually a faux-groni. WTF?!?! How do you mock a Negroni without a sprit? I bunted and asked for a wine list. I was not up for a $9 experiment.

Melting Pot San Mateo

"You want a what," asked the bartender? I explained the drink and now the 20-something bartender knows what the hell a Negroni is. The drink actually turned out alright, if not a bit small.

Tanglewood

The waiter had never heard of a Negroni before and had no idea what I asked for. Five-minutes after taking my order, he came back and said, "the bartender does not know what a Cargroni is." Hmm. That's probably a good thing. How about a "Neh--groni" instead. The drink had a lemon twist which pissed me off a bit, but there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the drink. The meal on the other hand---well, let's just say I will not be going back.

(Incidentally, Tanglewood is owned by Left Bank. Since I have a strong dislike for Left Bank, my Tanglewood experience makes a lot of sense.)

PF Chang's

Yeah. What the hell was I thinking ordering a Negroni here. It was at least 60% Vermouth. I drank half of it and punted. Shame on me. Next time stick with a beer from a bottle.

Great Ad (dreamhost sucks)

2008-01-16T13:29:00.000-08:00

Great google ad in the wake of the dreamhost billing disaster. Props to McKremie.com

Tonight will be an official "geek-out" so I can get the hell off of this host.

Dreamhost is...

2008-01-15T09:24:00.000-08:00

...run by asshats. I gotta get off this host.

Green Lady Bug?!?

2008-01-14T23:50:00.000-08:00

I spotted what looked to be a green lady bug farting around my parsley plant the other day. Here I thought the little red lady evolved to blend in with all the green. Am I witness to evolution in front of my own house? Nope--it was just a Spotted Cucumber Beetle which I should have killed on the spot. Oh well.

From wikipedia:

The spotted cucumber beetle (Diabrotica undecimpunctata) is a major agricultural pest insect (see also cucumber beetle). In the adult form it eats and damages leaves of many crops, including cucumbers, soybeans, cotton, beans and many others. In the larval form, which is known as the southern corn rootworm, it tunnels through the roots of young plants, stunting or killing them. These native pests have a wide range of host plants, but will readily infest a field of crop plants, most notoriously corn.

Lazy Comcast: Cancellation or Authorization???

2008-01-08T11:37:00.000-08:00

So, I just canceled auto-pay for my cable bill. Or, at least I think I did. How's this for ambiguous:

***This message confirms that changes to your recurring payment plan have been received. This is a copy of either your automatic recurring electronic fund transfer authorization or cancellation***

I guess comcast IT has not learned about "if" statements yet.

if(status == cancel)
confirmation="cancellation";
else if(status == active)
confirmation="authorization";

Chicken Tartar Redemption

2008-01-07T22:35:00.000-08:00

At my fathers birthday lunch this weekend, I was served some "chicken tartar." Even if it was "perfectly safe to eat" as the manager insisted, it is not something I wanted to eat. Bloody chicken is not too appealing. Dinner tonight was Garlic-Roasted Chicken with Fingerling Potatoes and Bacon to redeem this weekends travesty. Mmmm. Bacon.

Whenever I use fresh thyme, I am reminded why they call it thyme. It takes a hell of a lot of time to get the littlest bit of fresh thyme. It took me at least 25 minutes to separate and chop a tbsp of the herb. Good thing I had some garlic to roast since that accounted for 45-minutes of dead time.

The chicken was pan-fried and then thrown into the oven. The potatoes were only supposed to be boiled, but [soon-to-be] Mrs. M decided to throw them into the oven with the chicken for a bit. This gave them a bit of chicken fat and radient heat to brown them up nicely.

The final product (fingerling potatoes looked bad so new potatoes were substituted.) with a side of wilted spinich.

And the "macro" photo (I have to use the features on the new camera!)

High Maintenance Crab

2008-01-06T22:02:00.000-08:00

Sunday's dinner was Spicy Vietnamese Crab and Garlic Noodles. The concept was good, but it is one of those meals where the effort and cost overwealm any potential enjoyment.

The crab was procured live from the local market. This gave me the pleasure of being judge, jury and executioner. I followed some directions off the interweb and...

First, place the crab on it's back and hold it in place with a large cleaver or french knife positioned on the center-line of the crab, between the two sets of legs. Strike the cleaver a sharp blow with a rubber mallet or similar tool; chopping the crab in half and killing it instantly.

I lack a rubber mallet, but a rolling pin was a great substitution. Previous adventures with live crab had me follow directions of, "...strike the head against a hard object and rip off its top shell." Yikes! Not easy.

At this time I should point out that a recently live crap cut in half will have involuntary muscle spasms. This is common sense and I was already equipped with this knowledge, yet I still let out a "little girl scream" as 1/2 a crab body managed to leap out of my hand during cleaning.

Without too much fuss, I was able to de-leg the crab, cut into quarters and pan fry it. Aromatics were added and it was placed on top of noodles. The finished product looked yummy, but then I remembered I had to de-shell the beast.

I always enjoyed crab as a child. I am not sure why it seems like so much more work these days. Maybe my hands are too big? Either way, after 30-minutes of cracking, poking, cursing and swearing, I was finally ready to eat.

I would make this meal again, but I would use bulk lump crap to save time and money. I do enjoy the taste of crab--I just hate all the fuss required to enjoy it.

Duck Boobies

2007-12-31T21:40:00.000-08:00

Jalapeno-glazed duck breasts were deemed the last dinner of 2007. My two previous duck adventures resulted in one good and one bad duck dish. 2007 ended up on a high note.

The breasts were seared in a cast iron skillet with a salt-herb rub over medium high (start skin-side down).

Jed the Joker -- Circa February 1996

2007-12-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

As a freshman on a swim team, I had to shave my head. That was "the rule." I took advantage of the opportunity and turned myself into the joker.

Going to a conservative catholic college of ~4000 people, I freaked many with my alternative hair. I "presented" myself for the first time at the cafeteria with some teammates donned in other colorful and creative hairstyles. I recall one mow hawk and another blue-green snow-cone style coloring. I'm sure there were a few skinheads in the crew that did not care for all the pomp. About 20 seconds after we walked in, you could hear a pin drop--just a lot of blank stares and whispers. It was legend [--wait for it--] dary.

Up until my senior year, I still had people call me the "green haired guy." I think George Bush said it best, "Mission Accomplished".

Flickr

2007-12-20T18:47:00.000-08:00

I have [finally] started using flickr. When I first looked into it, I thought the limit was 100MB TOTAL.

Well shit, that's not a lot.

Then a read it again--100 MB/month.

Well shit, thats plenty for me!

Amazon Unboxing

2007-12-20T18:37:00.000-08:00

Yet another entertaining example of Amazon's excessive boxing. The shipment would have been just fine box #1.

Googling [for men?]

2007-12-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

Mental note. Next time include "solaris" or "linux" into a query involving "man" and "date".

google query > man date

What do you call two straight men having dinner face-to-face without the aid of a television or the crutch of sports? -- No

Welcome to Mandate magazine -- No. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!

The full documentation for date is maintained as a Texinfo -- YES.

I guess it could have been worse.

Hmm. I would have thought this would be worse.

EZ Bake Pantry

2007-12-16T23:24:00.000-08:00

This weekends project was a conversion of an ironing board nook to an "Easy Bake Pantry". Small, but a hell of a lot more useful.