Month: January 2004 (Page 5 of 6)

Fascinating

The new version of Photoshop, Photoshop CS, doesn’t allow you to open scanned images of currency. I understand that counterfeiting is bad. But considering that there are already geeks coming up with tons of ways to get around this, there are lots of other programs that don’t have this limitation, and all it will do is give Adobe bad publicity, why do it?

It also makes me wonder – will they be blocking porn images next? Will word processors be “watching” what you’re reading and writing? This isn’t so far-fetched. Remember the Microsoft Smart Tags fiasco? That was back in 2001, when Microsoft was going to alter its browser so they could change any word displayed to a link to a Microsoft product or other ad. Evil, and only got squelched when there was an outcry over it.

But these days, we’re pretty OK with others managing our freedoms (for our own good, of course). Think John Ashcroft doesn’t lick his lips with anticipation of the day he can monitor all your communication, and all your computer use? Then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

Mac and cheese

A words mean things commenter named sir_jane_russell asked me to pass along my recipe for homemade macaroni and cheese. And so I shall. It’s actually Pam Anderson’s recipe (not to be confused with Pamela Anderson), from her book “The Perfect Recipe.” The idea here is that rather than making a fussy white sauce, something I never seemed to get the hang of, you make a custard for the cheese. It’s fantastic and easy – not much harder than the box, and so much better.

1/2 pound elbow macaroni
4 tablespoons butter
2 large eggs
1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk (NOT sweetened condensed milk)
1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce, or to taste
Ground black pepper to taste
2 teaspoons mustard
10-12 ounces (3 cups) shredded mild cheddar, American or Monterey Jack cheese (not the already-shredded stuff, please)

Boil up the macaroni in salted water, definitely al dente. Once cooked and drained, transfer to large chicken fryer, Dutch oven or similar pan big enough to hold it, and add the butter. You want a heavy-bottomed pan for this.

Meanwhile, mix eggs, 1 cup of evaporated milk, salt, pepper and mustard in a small bowl. With your macaroni over medium heat, pour the egg mixture over the pasta with about 3/4 of the cheese, stirring constantly until cheese starts to melt. Gradually add in the rest of the cheese and evaporated milk, stirring constantly, for about 5 minutes more.

And you’re done! I don’t think this tastes as good the second day, but if you do reheat it, do it slow and low with some extra milk.

You can serve it as is and it’s great. If you want to get a little fancier, you could take individual servings, put them each in a small ceramic dish, top them with breadcrumbs or crumbled up croutons and put them under the broiler.

In terms of cheese, I use about half cheddar and half Monterey Jack for this recipe.

This is so good, even David might like it.

Dialectic

These drawings are freakin’ hilarious. Or incredibly sad. In these times, you can take your pick.

Mini iPods

I was excited about the prospect of a mini iPod from Apple, especially because I’ve become such a fan of iTunes for Windows. I love the iPod, but they’re way too expensive for the amount of use I would give such a device. So when I heard the new minis would be flash-memory-based and start around $100, I was stoked.

Sadly, Apple decided to pull the rug out from under me (and I’m sure a lot of other people) by announcing their iPod mini at $249, only $50 less than the lowest-priced traditional iPod. That’s just not enough of a price difference to make it attractive.

If they had come out with something more similar to the flash-memory MP3 players from other manufacturers, with, say, 1.5 GB of storage for $150, I would have been all over it. But $250 for 4 GB of hard drive storage, when 15 GB is only $50 more? I think they missed the boat on this one.

Plus, the colors are sorta girly. But that’s just me.

21 Grams

“21 Grams” uses the now-trendy technique of jockeying with the timeline, bringing us scenes from the end of the story at the beginning, and generally mixing things up. As with most uses of this technique, I didn’t see how it added much to the story or the experience of watching it. So it became a distraction, something that kept me at arm’s length from an already cold and numbing tale of death and loss.

Onw wonderful surprise was Sean Penn. After I slammed his “Acting! Thank You!” performance in “Mystic River,” here he was about the only thing that kept the proceedings on a human level. His sad, lonely Paul Rivers, waiting for a heart transplant, seemed like the only truly human character in the story. I especially liked his flashes of wistful humor.

I’m on the fence about recommending this one. It’s certainly better and more interesting than 90 percent of what’s out there. For example, I enjoyed this much more than the “In America” weep-fest. But it’s just too cold to give a hearty recommendation to. Try it at your own risk.

Doctor, it hurts when I go *like this*

Fitting in with my “right wing idiocy” theme today, Rosemary Esmay has a startling revelation: Howard Dean is short! True proof that he is a poisonous demagogue out to destroy everything we hold dear in this country. How dare he!

The thing is, if that’s the best they’ve got, then bring it on, baby.

Pompous pathetic gasbag

Bill O’Reilly’s latest tactic, evidenced by yesterday’s broadcast, is calling people on the left “American Jihadists.” This has got to be some of the most despicable rhetoric ever from O’Reilly, and that’s saying a lot.

I can’t wait to see what my friend Henry Quinn over at Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O’Reilly will have to say about this. He cuts through O’Reilly’s crap with a verve I can only hope to emulate.

UPDATE: Henry hits it out of the park. Take a look.

Civility

Jack Cluth of People’s Republic of Seabrook sent a mass e-mail out this morning crowing about his latest post, where he equates one of the ads in the MoveOn.org contest (out of 1,500 submitted), along with a couple Fark-esque Photoshop projects, to a campaign of liberal hate speech. He even titled his e-mail “A Plea for Civility.”

What a tool.

Why are liberals so willing to internalize the muck that gets slung at them from the right? Why should we listen to cries of “Civility!” from the right, while they go ahead and demonize us and our causes? We’ve got to stop that if we ever hope to come out from under the shadow of the right.

UPDATE: Check out the finalists in the “Bush in 30 Seconds” MoveOn.org ad contest. In my opinion, the two best, by far, are the first two, “Child’s Pay” and “In My Country.” I remain unconvinced that you can make an effective ad about the Iraq war.

Word of the Day

dialectic

Listening to…

“After All,” Dar Williams

So go ahead, push your luck
Say what it is you’ve got to say to me
We will push on into that mystery
And it’ll push right back
And there are worse things than that

‘Cause when you live in a world
Well it gets in to who you thought you’d be
And now I laugh at how the world changed me
I think life chose me after all

Thanks again to David, who gives me the song titles to his mixes when I ask him.