The Mighty Friends of Foxbat

thothmeister

Subject:	A potentially bad day all saved!
Time:	12:03 am.
Mood:	relieved.

This was a day with potential bad stuff but all fixed up now!

First, things started bad when Transport brought me to work this morning: the driver put the seat cushion from my chair on his roof when he picked me up, but never packed it after. As a result: when he was getting my chair out at my destination, there was no seat cushion. He promised to go back to my building, and to leave me voicemail about the results after.

I was hopeful, but my mind was filled with bad visions. I remembered that Boots had shed on that cushion, and though I'd cleaned off most of it years ago, there was still some left. I have photos of him and memories... however that cushion is my last physical remains of him.

Yes, I'm that sentimental.

Fortunately the driver did find my cushion, and left it with one of my neighbors, who gave it back to me when I got home late afternoon.

The universe wasn't through messing with me today though: I brought my digital camera to work today, to show a friend photos from my trip. I reset the date on the camera. Suddenly, my photos had vanished from it.

Again I lucked out: I'm using an undelete program right now to get them back.

As I often say, the Universe is out to get us, but sometimes we get it back!

Comments: Add Your Own.

iamnikchick

Subject:	Zipcar: It's no Flexcar
Time:	4:53 pm.
Mood:	aggravated.

Longtime readers know that I was a big fan of Flexcar and used the service for over four years before they merged with Zipcar. Things had started to go downhill with the car-sharing when the Washington State Department of Revenue insisted on charging a car "rental" tax of 9.7% on Flexcar users. That situation was never reversed or resolved, despite last year's assurances from my representative Margarita Prentice that that she was "pleased to report the Governor's office, the Department of Revenue and others are working on language that will address the differences between a rental car company and a 'flexcar' program."

I've been living with Zipcar for a while now and I have to say that it reminds me all too much of my experience of being a happy Homegrocer.com subscriber who then saw things go dramatically downhill after the merger with Webvan, much as another disappointed subscriber's opinion piece from 2001 details here. When the Zipcar/Flexcar merger hit the news, company spokespeople and optimistic users were spouting off about how "increased access to cars" through the merger would be great and "outweigh" concerns over shrinking competition. Uh huh.

Erica Barnett at The Slog (Seattle's free weekly paper The Stranger's blog, for those outside the area) blogged about Zipcar's perceived flaws and failures back in February. Higher monthly minimums and higher hourly rates, hybrids classified under "premium" rates alongside luxury vehicles, stiff penalties for "infractions" (5 minutes late returning even though no one else had reserved the car for use? $50 fine!) instead of credits and incentives for pitching in, fees to talk to an actual person to address any issues, etc. These things combined with the fact that we're also paying 9.7% state "rental car" tax, 6.5% state sales tax, and 2.5% King county/RTA tax makes the whole carshare prospect a lot less attractive than it used to be.

Last week was perhaps my worst week ever with Zipcar. Monday the 14th they announced that they were rearranging their pricing, focusing on the fact that they were lowering the rate on hybrids. Had they not raised the price on hybrids (not to mention replaced my local hybrid with a bare bones Subaru) I might have celebrated that news, but I would not have been celebrating for long because that mail was immediately followed by another mail that announced that they were removing my local Zipcar location altogether, immediately. As in had probably already been done by the time I received the mail at 6:30pm. A third e-mail told of the awesome new gas cards and how to use them (this will be important to the story later).

Thursday I reserved a Zipcar for the day. My nearest option is now 2 miles away instead of six blocks. I arrived at my car and opened it up to find shards of glass from a previously broken window strewn throughout the car. Someone had replaced the window and cleaned up most of the glass but there were still shards everywhere (the seats and the floor, front and back, the dashboard, everywhere). The driver's side door armrest had also been ripped away from the door and was still partially detatched. I called to report the damage, but where with Flexcar I had the option of talking to an actual person, Zipcar automates the damage report. I had no idea if Zipcar wanted me to continue with my reservation or if this was something they might have wanted to investigate further right away... but I needed the car and was on a schedule so I had to take it as it was. At the end of my reservation I needed to stop for gas because the car was completely empty. I almost never let the car get that low but this was an unfamiliar car and the gas gauge was in a different location and I flat out missed it until the little red gas pump came on to warn me to fill up. At that point I discovered that my car had not yet been outfitted with its (and I quote) "more stylish, more reliable and more efficient gas card" but the old card that remained in the car no longer worked. I called customer service and chose the option to speak to an actual person (which may or may not have cost me $3.50). However, speaking to an actual person did me no good. She had no clue about the old cards, seemed to be only on hand to talk to people who couldn't figure out the new cards and when her script didn't cover my situation she told me that my only option was to pay to put gas in the car myself and send in the receipt. "You won't be charged as long as there's at least a quarter tank," she chirped. Awesome. Car now 2 miles away, had to deal with broken glass all over, and got to spot Zipcar a full quarter tank of gas on my dime.

I suppose you can tell that I'm feeling a little disgruntled over this, but it gets better! Today I received an e-mail about a damage inquiry on my former local Zipcar. "We are not assigning blame, we are simply following up on the report that we received," the letter read, and then goes on in the very next sentence, "Per our Member Agreement (section 9.6), damages incurred during a member's reservation are the responsibility of that member." Now, this is not an inquiry about the car I just recently used, but a vehicle I last drove A MONTH AGO, on June 20th. In my history with Flexcar I've been diligent about reporting damage, so much so that when I called to report that a pebble had kicked up on the freeway and dinged the windshield they told me not to worry about reporting it unless the windshield was actually cracked. Now, a month after I've used the car they're going to try to put some damage off on me? Oh, I know, I know, they say they're just investigating and not assigning blame but after last week I'm not feeling very generous towards Zipcar. In fact, if they do decide that the damage somehow happened on my watch and I'm responsible for it at this point, you can bet that's the day when I become a FORMER Zipcar member in a right hurry.

It's like Homegrocer all over again. I'll still be missing Flexcar after Zipcar is gone.

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

wilwheaton

Subject:	i'm off to nerd prom
Time:	8:42 pm.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/wwdn/~3/344107344/im-off-to-nerd.html

It's so weird to have this great week working on Criminal Minds that I can't talk about in any detail until October. I have no mouth, and I must scream, you could say. How about I just give up one little non-spoilery thing, and nobody tells on me, okay?

At the end of the shoot, I was thanking a lot of the people I worked with for making it such a great experience. Every single one of them told me that they wished I worked on the show every day. I guess the feeling was mutual.

So, yeah, that made me feel pretty good. If you get a chance to work on Criminal Minds, I highly recommend it.

Now, to business:

Tomorrow, I'm heading down to San Diego for an abbreviated stay at Comic-Con. Here's my schedule:

On Thursday, I'll be on a panel called Star Trek Without a Blueprint: How books and comics keep expanding the boundaries of the Star Trek universe. We'll be talking about the future of Star Trek publishing in room 32AB from 4:00-5:00. I'll be on the panel with Andy Mangels (moderator and Star Trek author), Margaret Clark (executive editor, Pocket Books), Andy Schmidt (senior editor, IDW) and Star Trek authors Kevin Dilmore, Dave Mack, Scott Tipton, and Dayton Ward.
The rest of the time, I'll be with my friend Rich Stevens at the Dumbrella booth, which is number 1335. MC Frontalot is going to be there, too, so if you're looking to fill that final square on Nerd Bingo, come and see us.

Oh. I guess it would be useful to know what I'm taking with me to sign and sell, wouldn't it?

In addition to some 8x10s from Star Trek and Stand By Me, I'll have copies of The Happiest Days of Our Lives , which I'm kind of hoping will sell out.

I'll have a few copies of Dancing Barefoot and Just A Geek. I'll also have a few copies of Volume 2 of the Star Trek Manga. I won't have any copies of Volume 3 of the Star Trek Manga, but it's just been released, so I'm sure you'll be able to pick up a copy somewhere. If you bring it to the booth, I'm happy to sign it for you.

Finally, I will have copies of this year's Chapbook, which is called Sunken Treasure. What's that, you say? You don't know what that is? You don't have time to click a link, you say? Well, my lazy friend, allow me to show you part of the author's note:

Every summer, I make one of these limited chapbooks and take them with me on the inevitable summer convention tour. In the past, I’ve pulled material from whatever I’m working on, as sort of a fall preview, but this year the book I’m working on is so top secret, I’d have to print the chapbook on self-destructing paper, and while that would make it a very limited edition, the costs associated are kind of prohibitive.

So for 2008’s limited edition chapbook extravaganza, I’ve put together the first ever Wil Wheaton Sampler. With the help of my editor Andrew, who is a former ninja warrior and recreational time traveler, I’ve pulled together things I like from all three of my books, my blog, and this groovy collaborative fiction project I play with called Ficlets. I’ve also included, for the first time anywhere, one of the scripts I wrote for a sketch comedy show at the ACME Comedy Theater.

I am really proud of Sunken Treasure, and I think Andrew (my friend and editor) and I came up with something really special. I only sold about a dozen of them at San Jose Super-Con (there really weren't that many people there this year) and since I'm not welcome at the Creation convention in Vegas, the only places you can get copies of it will be Comic-Con and PAX. I'm anxious to get these little books out into the wild, though, so I hope you'll tell everyone you know, for a grand total of 150 people (you guys can coordinate this, right?) to come by the Dumbrella booth and check it out. It's so weird to make something I'm so proud of, and only get to share it with a handful of people so far.

I don't know if I'll be particularly motivated to post while I'm away. I'll likely be posting all sorts of things to Twitter, including where I am and when I'll be signing. There will also be pithy observations about my fellow geeks, so you don't want to miss that. Erm, provided I can avoid the fail whale, that is. Ahem.

The Internet is quiet as hell lately. I feel like I'm talking into an empty tube, so thanks for reading and commenting; it makes me feel a little less like a crazy old man with no pants standing on the corner ranting about the weather.

Comments: Add Your Own.

bruce_schneier

Subject:	Information Security and Liabilities
Time:	3:09 pm.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/information_sec_2.html

In my fourth column for the Guardian last Thursday, I talk about information security and liabilities:

Last summer, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee issued a report on "Personal Internet Security." I was invited to give testimony for that report, and one of my recommendations was that software vendors be held liable when they are at fault. Their final report included that recommendation. The government rejected the recommendations in that report last autumn, and last week the committee issued a report on their follow-up inquiry, which still recommends software liabilities.

Good for them.

I'm not implying that liabilities are easy, or that all the liability for security vulnerabilities should fall on the vendor. But the courts are good at partial liability. Any automobile liability suit has many potential responsible parties: the car, the driver, the road, the weather, possibly another driver and another car, and so on. Similarly, a computer failure has several parties who may be partially responsible: the software vendor, the computer vendor, the network vendor, the user, possibly another hacker, and so on. But we're never going to get there until we start. Software liability is the market force that will incentivise companies to improve their software quality – and everyone's security.

Comments: Add Your Own.

princeofcairo

Subject:	19th Century Nervous Breakdown
Time:	11:32 am.

While I'm plugging things, I should plug this.

Awhile back,

yojimbouk asked me: "What do you know about the Empress Eugénie of France?" I said something like "Not much more than the average Castle Falkenstein player, but I have a biography of Napoleon III and Otto Friedrich's book Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet." "That's two more than anyone else I know. You're hired."

What he hired me to do was edit a manuscript by Joyce Cartlidge, which became in due course the book Empress Eugénie: Her Secret Revealed, which was published last month by Magnum Opus Press.

The book's thesis is that the future Empress bore an illegitimate daughter, and had her spirited off to Lancashire, where she eventually married into the Cartlidge family. A few decades of family sleuthing later: ta da! Having become, at one time, intimately familiar with the details, I can say that the book is not implausible on the surface of it -- the dates (including the dates of missing diary entries or letters) fit, and Lord knows illegitimate children (and the convenient export of the inconvenient ones) were not uncommon in the era. Eugénie was exactly the sort of person who would have a potentially life-wrecking affair with an older man, and her mother was exactly the sort of person who would orchestrate any number of baby shipments to keep her daughter in the marriage market. Beyond that, the historical record is pretty much silent, although Joyce managed to fill a pretty good book with what she could dig up.

My contribution, as I mentioned, was the editing; people looking for my prose won't find it here. But people looking for a nice little historical hugger-mugger, with arriviste royalty and Victorian train schedules aplenty, will have a pleasant evening with it, I daresay. And you can always use it as Castle Falkenstein source material.

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

righteousfist

Subject:	Summertime, and the living is...
Time:	10:48 am.
Mood:	cheerful.

...easier. This summer has been a damn sight better than my last two, and I find that more than acceptable. Green Ronin's GenCon releases are on track as of this writing, and I have have a side thing or two in the works. More on that when I get a few more ducks in a row. There has been time for eating good food, watching baseball, sitting in front yards drinking beer and talking, meeting the fiances of friends....

I spent most of the past weekend cleaning up my basement, and I am verging on having all the crap down there under control. Another weekend of work, and a few more Freecycle postings, and it should be doable. While moving comics from short boxes into new DrawerBoxes, I had a chance to look at comics I had acquired over the years, and I came to a conclusion: I can, with very little problem, eliminate about 30% of my comic collection. I think I probably will do this. I have stuff in those white boxes that I not only don't remember, but that I don't give a damn about. Other books I might care about, but I am inclined to get the trades of them to save space. After I finish getting everything in order, I think it's going to be purging time.

On the flipside of this revelation, I also had brief glimpses of some really neat comic books that I haven't seen in a long time. Organizing the comic collection should be pretty entertaining, and with some dedication, I can probably finally get everything bagged and boarded (preferably in Mylites).

I had a similar experience with my CDs, and with my RPG and game collection, but to a much less dramatic level. I'll probably do a purge on both of those areas as well.

My townhouse is well-sized for me, but not gigantic. I like having stuff, but I want to make sure that the stuff I have is stuff I actively want, not just stuff that I have been too lazy to get rid of. That way lieth madness. More specifically, that way lieth acquiring some of my Dads less positive habits.

Comments: Read 1 or Add Your Own.

wickedthought

Subject:	Project Alpha: Nearly 30 Years After
Time:	6:43 am.

In 1979, James S. McDonnell donated $500,000 to Washington University in Missouri for the establishment of the McDonnell Laboratory for Psychical Research.

When James Randi heard about the project, he offered his services to the project to help avoid the problems Uri Gellar caused at the Stanford Research Institute. Randi's offer of help was disregarded; the researchers insisted they didn't need a magician to assist them in determining the validity of psychic claims.

Two years later, the institute's two chief researchers found what they believed to be two young men who demonstrated--under lab conditions--what the researchers called "psychic abilities."

Around the same time, Randi held his own press conference with the psychics. He asked them, "Do you cheat?"

And the two men looked at each other and said, "Yes, we do."

The two men were amateur magicians sent by Randi to demonstrate how scientists can be duped by simple slight of hand. They were told, "If anyone asks you 'Are you cheating?' you must say 'Yes.'"

They were never asked.

Nearly thirty years later, both scientists and laymen are still being fooled by charlatains with claims of "psychic" or "divine" powers. Whenever I see books like The Secret or see Benny Hinn on TV, I think of Randi, thirty years ago, proving how easily we can all be fooled... because deep down, we all want to believe.

An intriguing interview with Randi on the subject.
The wikipedia article.

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

robin_d_laws

Subject:	Miller Time
Time:	9:20 am.

The as-yet-unnamed 4E campaign has pulled a Barney Miller. It has taken on a tone and content rather different than envisioned in the pilot.

As mentioned previously, I began the game by asking the players to envision two distinct outcomes of their possible character arcs. As several sessions of play went by, devoted to learning the combat system, I got a hankering to introduce some of this promised characterization into the mix. Presented with PC casualties of the playtesting process (I still have no idea how I assigned such high damage values to those creatures, honest) I decided to tie in their free resurrections to story arcs proposed by a couple of the other players. The paladin’s destiny may be as savior of his people from their undead overlords—or as an anti-savior who becomes like the creatures he’s sworn to fight. The wizard/ranger quests for arcane knowledge, which may consume her if plumbed without moral guidance. So the wizard got a legendary book, which she was able to use to bring back the rogue and fighter from the dead in unorthodox fashion. These two now register as undead and have acquired a minor allergy to radiant damage. The group now quests to lift the taint of undeath from their comrades.

In the meantime, the characters have taken a swerve toward the picaresque. Told that they can only resolve the undeath issue by confronting their destinies, the characters have elected to find a short cut. The paladin is proving himself other than an typically jerky paladin—he’s an atypical jerky paladin, prone to panicked exclamations and more interested in his burgeoning livestock business than his legendary fate.

In part the back-to-the-dungeon vibe has prompted the group to nostalgically embrace the comic irresponsibility of D&D games of yore. The early focus on combats and learning the rules has also permitted the group to drift back to its preference for playing their characters as amusingly inept.

When an unexpected dynamic arises in play, I say accept the dynamic. So for the moment at least, the accent will be on misadventure. We’ll see if the characters come out the other side of this older and wiser, eventually shifting back to epic mode, or if the campaign is headed permanently into Vancian territory.

Comments: Read 20 or Add Your Own.

doccross

Subject:	Bright Yellow Dragon Eyes
Time:	2:52 pm.
Mood:	Not dangerous...yet.
Music:	The Police "Synchronicity".

...dimly seen through the smoke

So, today I went forth, as I did yesterday and so many days these past 6 weeks, looking for a job. Specifically, looking for jobs at pizza joints, since I spent the last 15.75 years working at one.

The result: Nobody is hiring, most places are laying people off and at one place, the assistant manager told me that he expected that store to close in a month or so. And they are a pretty large West Coast chain.

It's hard not to be discouraged. Fortunately, I'm too busy fighting off the wolves at my door to become discouraged. Also, I'm slowly going nuts being home all day, every day.

To make matters worse, Dark Doc keeps reminding me that there are always ways to make money. Which is true, but fuck him, I'm too old, too fat and too married with dogs to walk that walk again.

Tomorrow, I'll spend the day housecleaning, gardening (the mass tomato "ripen off" is starting) and writing game stuff that might bring in a buck or two. More on that latter bit later.

Thursday and Friday, I'll be back in the battle.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Speaking of gaming, which I was just a few lines up, I've reopened an old Live Journal of mine and am re-dedicating it to gaming only posts...especially those that are of a "toss out an idea and see what my Loyal Readers do with it" nature. The LJ name is

shadowgm and there's not much there right now, but it's coming.

And now, I owe The Girls a bit of playtime in the park. More bloggage later.

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

seanpatfannon

Subject:	[Shaintar] GenCon "The Burning Heart" - Calling All Shaintar Fans and Savages
Time:	5:38 pm.

(Cross posted numerous places)

Hello, everyone.

This is my call to all Shaintar fans and supporters, and all Savages, that are attending GenCon this year. By now, you all know I am running a huge program at GenCon entitled "The Burning Heart." It is a major storyline in the Shaintar setting, one that will impact the setting forever.

One of the keys to the program is the Finale event being hosted Saturday night. It starts at 7:00 PM and runs into the wee hours, and it is located in the McClellan room in the Omni (which is attached to the convention center).

This is meant to be a truly epic battle for the heart and soul of the Southern Kingdoms. To make that work, I need all the Savages I can get to come play. I have a plan for how to make it all work so that everyone is easily engaged without having to wait forever, so please don't be afraid of a battle where you are going to have to wait for hours to take an action.

Part of that plan needs some experienced Savages who can take the role of a "Player Referee." You'll have a character, just like everyone else, but I will be relying on you to manage portions of the battle where your character is, enabling players at your table to move through their part of the battle as other groups do so simultaneously.

If you are willing to help me out as a Player Ref, please drop me a line (spf@talisman-studios.com). There will be rewards for taking on this duty, trust me.

So if you are coming to GenCon, plan on coming by the Talisman Booth in the Exhibit Hall and playing one or more Skirmish battles with us. You'll get a character, and you'll get experience and items you can use throughout the entire "Burning Heart" program.

As well, anyone is welcome to create a character, using the core rules and Shaintar material. Just start them at 20xps and bring them to the show.

And by all means, please help me make this a truly grand and epic experience for all Savage and Shaintar fans. Together, we can turn this into one of those gaming events people talk about for years to come...

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

princeofcairo

Subject:	This Has Officially Gone Too Far
Time:	3:02 pm.

So last night I dreamed a roleplaying game. It was called Splitting Bullets, and it was a gorgeous hardback designed in the coolest possible sort of retro font, layout, and color (for which I blame the Mad Men marathon), and it was about some sort of parallel-history assassin outfit. The designer (at whose apartment I was crashing for some reason, and who remains nameless in my memory) had released it as the rules beta for a much more complete version of the game he was working on, which had a different title.

The worst of it is that I remember having read a really terrific mechanic for "reality fishing" in the game, although it was called something else that I can't remember upon waking. In my dream, I was explaining it in some detail to Steve Long, so imagine my chagrin at being unable to recall it now; this is even worse than the usual "research dream," from which I awaken with a sense of highly useful information read and gone.

This is all probably a result of my subconscious busily developing GUMSHOE variations for the upcoming Nosferatu Gambit game, but it is still very, very irksome, because I really liked that reality fishing mechanic. So did Steve Long, so I know it must have been good.

Comments: Read 17 or Add Your Own.

bruce_schneier

Subject:	The Case of the Stolen Blackberry and the Awesome Chinese Hacking Skills
Time:	10:05 am.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/07/the_case_of_the.html

A high-level British government employee had his Blackberry stolen by Chinese intelligence:

The aide, a senior Downing Street adviser who was with the prime minister on a trip to China earlier this year, had his BlackBerry phone stolen after being picked up by a Chinese woman who had approached him in a Shanghai hotel disco.

The aide agreed to return to his hotel with the woman. He reported the BlackBerry missing the next morning.

That can't look good on your annual employee review.

But it's this part of the article that has me confused:

Experts say that even if the aide’s device did not contain anything top secret, it might enable a hostile intelligence service to hack into the Downing Street server, potentially gaining access to No 10’s e-mail traffic and text messages.

Um, what? I assume the IT department just turned off the guy's password. Was this nonsense peddled to the press by the UK government, or is some "expert" trying to sell us something? The article doesn't say.

EDITED TO ADD (7/22): The first commenter makes a good point, which I didn't think of. The article says that it's Chinese intelligence:

A senior official said yesterday that the incident had all the hallmarks of a suspected honeytrap by Chinese intelligence.

But Chinese intelligence would be far more likely to clone the Blackberry and then return it. Much better infomation that way. This is much more likely to be petty theft.

EDITED TO ADD (7/23): The more I think about this story, the less sense it makes. If you're a Chinese intelligence officer and you manage to get an aide to the British Prime Minister to have sex with one of your agents, you're not going to immediately burn him by stealing his Blackberry. That's just stupid.

Comments: Add Your Own.

robin_d_laws

Subject:	TV Round Up
Time:	10:50 am.

Roger Ebert, already sidelined by illness, and his co-host Richard Roeper are departing the At the Movies review show after failing to come to contract terms with its owner, Disney. Ebert had already been withholding rights to the trademarked “Two Thumbs Up” from them for several months. Disney has announced plans to replace Roeper and permanent fill-in Michael Phillips with two younger critics, Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz. Lyons is a second generation critic; Mankiewicz descends from a storied clan of Hollywood writers. As they pursue a younger demographic, the suits at Disney are no doubt secretly thinking that the new guys will enthusiastically recommend all the crap blockbusters and ignore those stupid small and subtitled films that only cineastes care about. Critics have a way of growing into the job, though—as Roeper has over the years. He started as positively cringeworthy, but expanded his horizons, becoming especially loose and confident during Ebert’s convalescence. Phillips I’ve never warmed too, though. He’s a tougher critic than either Ebert or Roeper, who actually tend to support any halfway decent popcorn flick. Phillips’ higher bar would be a positive if only he backed up his headmasterish judgments with argument or example. Without having seen the new guys, I hold out hope that they’ll eventually disappoint the suits and do more than cheerlead for the publicity machine.

Roeper and Phillips, possibly in conjunction with Ebert, are shopping a new show to interested parties.

In police procedural news, Chris Noth is leaving Law and Order: Criminal Intent. This time he seems to be departing the L&O franchise voluntarily. Replacing him in the swapped-off lead role is Jeff Goldblum, who was very cool in the short-lived cop show Raines. Now he and alternate lead Vincent D’Onofrio can engage in an epic weird-off. I look forward to the battle of the off-kilter line readings.

And finally, the second season of Mad Men starts this Sunday on AMC. Now that The Wire is off the air, this is unquestionably the best series on American TV. Like The Sopranos and Deadwood, it gets much of its charge from its portrayal of an exotic milieu—in this case, New York ad agencies in the alien era of the early sixties. What distinguishes it from those shows is the slippery, elusive structures of its individual episodes. It abandons the classic model of establish A story, establish B story, develop A and B stories, wrap up B story, wrap up A story to weave surprising narratives that reveal themselves only in retrospect as part of a cohesive whole. If you haven't gone there yet, rent the first season pronto and queue up the second on your recording device of choice.

Comments: Read 14 or Add Your Own.

bryant

Subject:	iPhone eBooks
Time:	9:38 am.

eBooks on the iPhone are pretty obvious; I’ve been keeping an eye out for a good reader. Here’s the first cut: Stanza (App Store link).

The key is being able to download your own books, which Stanza allows. Grab Stanza Desktop and load your books into there, then select Enable Sharing from the Tools menu and fire up the iPhone Stanza app. Shared Books -> Books on Macintosh displays the list of currently open books in Stanza Desktop. Select the ones you want, and there you go.

(Helpful hint: go back to the Mac to tell Stanza Desktop that it’s OK for the iPhone to connect. I couldn’t figure out why the iPhone app was hanging at first.)

Stanza Desktop supports a nice list of file types, including Open eBook, Kindle, Mobipocket, HTML, PDF, LIT, PalmDoc, RTF, and Word. It does not support Sony Reader or PDF files. Good enough for my purposes but not perfect.

The iPhone UI could use a little polish but it’s very functional. I’m happy for the nonce. The apps are currently free; the web site says the Desktop will cost something once it’s out of beta.

Originally published at Imaginary Vestibule.

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

iamnikchick

Subject:	Cooking Digression
Time:	11:13 pm.
Mood:	thirsty.

Things around here have been a bit chaotic of late and I've been doing far less cooking than I intended when spring started. When I have mustered the time or energy or preparation to do a little cooking, I've been relying on things like ready-to-grill kabobs from Metropolitan Market. We haven't done the CSA this year and I've barely visited the farmer's markets. Even so, I did manage to try a couple of recipes that were good enough that I felt I should pass them along.

First, I have tried yet another winner from Heidi Swanson's Super Natural Cooking. If you haven't bought this book yet, why not? It's seriously the most unique, delightful, astonishing collection of recipes I've had the pleasure to discover in a long time. Here's an example:

Lime-Bathed Peanut Salad

2 cups unsalted raw peanuts
4 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 large jalapeno chile, seeded and diced
3/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1 Tbsp freshly squeezed lime juice
1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 tsp fine-grain sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350. (Since it's summer, I moved this step to the toaster oven to keep the heat down and it worked just fine.)

Place peanuts on a rimmed baking sheet and toast for 5 to 10 minutes, stirring or shaking the pan a couple of times for more even browning.

Combine the tomatoes, jalapeno, and cilantro in a bowl. In a separate small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, and salt. Gently stir into the tomato mixture to combine. Just before serving, fold in the peanuts. Adjust seasoning to taste.

Makes 4 to 6 servings

The other success I had was serving a fresh pea/mint soup from Cooking Light alongside some wild salmon patties.

Fresh Pea Soup with Mint

2 teaspoons butter
1 cup coarsely chopped green onions
4 cups shelled green peas (about 4 pounds unshelled)
3 cups fat-free, less-sodium chicken broth (I used half vegetable broth, half chicken)
2 cups water
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons thinly sliced mint
Cracked black pepper

Melt butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onions to pan and cook 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add peas, broth, and 2 cups water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes or until the peas are very tender, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat and let stand 15 minutes. Stir in juice, salt, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper.

Place half of pea mixture in blender and process until smooth. Do this carefully as hot liquid expands very fast in a blender; I recommend holding the lid down with a kitchen towel just to be safe. Pour pureed soup mixture into a large bowl. Repeat procedure with remaining pea mixture. Strain this half of the pureed soup mixture through a sieve over a large bowl, reserving the liquid; discard the solids. Return strained soup to pureed soup mixture. Ladle about 3/4 cup soup mixture into each of 6 bowls; drizzle each with 1/2 teaspoon oil. Sprinkle each serving with 1 teaspoon mint. Garnish with cracked pepper, if desired.

Makes 6 servings

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