Music news

Some interesting (to me) music news:

• Modest Mouse [wiki] have a new album due out any day now. (They're from Issaquah, so you know they're cool!) Plus, they're joined this time around by ex-The Smiths guitarist, Johnny Marr. (drool!) I guess this is old news and I've been living under a rock, but I just found out recently (by reading trashy magazines in the gym).

• This week is the SXSW music festival [wiki] and local radio station, KEXP, is doing live broadcasts. The broadcast ends on Friday with a 1-hour set by one of my current favourite bands, Beirut [wiki]. Check it out (they stream).

• Damon Albarn is back with a new album. Blur are one of my favourite bands of all time, so I've been following his post-Blur work with interest. this new album is not by Blur or the Gorillaz; this time he's formed an "unnamed band". Initially it was due to be a solo album (produced by Danger Mouse, no relation to Modest Mouse). The wiki page has some good info - hopefully I can listen to this one on Napster :)

• Speaking of Danger Mouse, he collaborated on Gnarls Barkley's St. Elsewhere. I'd also not heard this before a few days ago, and it's really good. Reminds me a bit of massive Attack, Portishead, Faithless and Tricky, so if you like those you might like this one too.

Seattle food and bar news

I'm recovering from a fun weekend, and thought I'd share some raves about the places I've been to recently, and also list some of the new places in Seattle I found out about, but have yet to try.

Been there:

1. Rover's. Wow! This food here is absolutely fantastic! One of the other guests at our table had been to the Herb Farm, and said Rover's was much better. It's also less expensive (although definitely still pricey). A and I had the 5-course vegetarian menu, and I added a scrambled egg with creme fraiche and caviar. Being a total glutton I also went for a flight of wines paired with each of the 5 courses - good value at $50 (the pours were generous, and the wines were all good to excellent). I'll definitely be back once or twice a year for a special treat...
2. Union Square Grill. Lovely art-deco decor and comfy booths. Fairly aged clientelle and a focus on standard grill fare make this a little too reserved and staid for my liking. The food was pretty good, especially the wild mushroom phyllo appetizer. The heavily salted salmon main course I had was a let-down, though...
3. Union. We ended up here for dessert after a show on Saturday, and I was really impressed! The service was exceptional - friendly, efficient and with some fun banter between us and the waitress: SNL need to do a "Jaegermeister shots at the symphony" sketch in our honour. Their desserts are excellent - a worthy replacement for our old dessert venue, Earth & Ocean. (And sadly, Coco La Ti Da has closed down).

Places to check out:

1. The Bottleneck Lounge is a new bar in Capitol Hill. They supposedly serve (only?) South African wine, which is unusual.
2. The Georgetown Liquor Company is a "retro-gaming bar". They have a 100% veggie menu, which is fine by me!

Cheese, Grommit!

A recent cheese discovery at the local Whole Foods is a yummy heart-shaped neufchatel, named Coeur de Bray. It's a lot like camembert, but the shape makes it unusual and a fun choice for Valentine's Day.

From the site linked to above:

It is known that since the Middle Ages the Neufchatel cheese had many shapes, depending on fashion or simply on the moulds the producer owned ! The legend explains that the heart shape is due to the young Norman women that wanted to express discreetly their feelings to the English soldiers during the wars in the Middle Age ...

How not to describe wine...

Every now and then the email offers I get from Garagiste are unintentionally amusing. Taking this snippet from a recent offer:

"Black pepper, ceiling wax, spices, and toast are found in the nose of the potentially exceptional xxxx Port"

Mmmm... Ceiling wax smells yummy!

Another bit of Fry and Laurie

"We're talking about language".

(Previous post in this series here).

Strange names

Putzmeister.

Hmm, that doesn't have any embarassing connotations, does it?

The best machinima

Slate has a fun entry on the best machinima on the web, featuring a video gallery of some notable "movies". What's machinima, you ask? It's a munging of "machine" and "animation", and refers to movies made using characters from computer games, and rendered using the actual game's graphics engine.

Some fun videos from the gallery provided by Slate:

• The Internet is for Porn. (Lyrics may not be safe for work)
• The Sims 2 do "Sk8er Boi".
• The Danger Attacks at Dawn is episode 2 of the brilliantly weird and funny French series Bill et John (the movie has English subtitles). This one is my favourit of the bunch. You wouldn't think a flight simulator would be fertile ground for a comedy... :)

And one they left out, Fett's Vette (Danger: The soundtrack is really catchy!)

Beware of warm chairs!

I meant to post this a while back, and found it languishing in my drafts folder. So, without further ado, here is an important lesson on the birds and the bees.

I love old British comedy, God help me!

Happy New Year!

Sunday marked the Lunar New Year in China and several other countries. The date also coincides with Tibetan Losar.

To celebrate, we made some steamed veggie dumplings. (OK, we actually cheated and bought some frozen ones from Uwajimaya) These were pretty close to Nepalese or Tibetan momos, and I was planning to try re-creating the spicy tomato sauce I back in 2001 while visiting the Himalayas.

This recipe that I found on the net turned out nicely:

Momo Sauce Recipe:
2 Tbsp oil or ghee
1 tsp Minced ginger
1 tsp Minced garlic
1/2 cup Diced onion
1/2 tsp Garam masala
1/8 tsp Turmeric
1/2 tsp Chili powder (I used a mix of cayenne and crushed red chilis)
1 1/2 cups Diced tomatoes
1 cup Water
1/2 tsp White vinegar
1 tsp Soy sauce
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
2 Green onions, chopped
2 Sprigs cilantro, chopped

Heat oil in a pot. Add ginger, garlic & onion & stir-fry 1 minute. Add garam masala, turmeric & chili powder. Stir-fry for 30 seconds. Add tomatoes & stir-fry for 3 minutes. Add water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat & simmer 5 minutes. Add vinegar, soy sauce, salt & pepper. Mix well. Garnish with green onions & cilantro. Serve hot.

Crimson Tide : crime in South Africa

There's an interesting article on society and the crime situation in South Africa by Cees Bruggemans (Chief Economist of First National Bank).

A bit of Fry and Laurie

I'm enjoying the first series DVD, so I thought I'd post a links to some of the funnier sketches.

First off: Here's the song "Mystery", from the pilot episode.
(He did the same song more recently on Inside the Actor's Studio, but I don't think it's as good.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Well, I must be the luckiest guy alive. Yum Lass spoilt me (as usual) this year, and managed to surprise me at work by organizing an a capella singing Valentine - delivered right outside my office. I think I was blushing so hard the air conditioning in our building had to kick into overdrive... :)

This evening I came home to a loverly meal, with some Fairview Viognier, and some thoughtful pressies. Ah....

In parting, I leave you with the illustrious Peter Sellers:

She loves you!
Ya?
Ya, ya!

Another one bites the dust

Jim Allchin retired this week. I can't help but admire the guy, even though he goofed up plenty ad is largely to blame for the Vista delays - he was definitely a leader that had the technical chops to lead a team like Windows. I'm not so sure about his replacement, time will tell...

Jim's last blog post at Microsoft is cute and worth checking out.

PS: What was with Bill Gates' appearance on the Daily Show? Firstly, it was mostly boring. (Jon Stewart got some laughs despite Bill's best efforts to crush them...) Secondly, dashing off the set while the show was still on air made everyone go "What?!". The Daily Show ran with it and had a parody during the credits of the following show.

New layout

For those that read this blog the "old-fashioned" way, please bear with me as I tweak the layout. I'm using a new template based on one from Beautiful Beta. Hackosphere has some cool templates and widgets for Blogger - I want to add this widget for sure.

The fork image is from Amodiovalerio Verde courtesy of flickr.

Microsoft v. Apple

I think it's obvious to most people that Apple has Microsoft beat when it comes to advertising. The Mac versus PC ads on TV with John Hodgman as the PC are funny, and memorable. Then there's the cool iPod ads.

To rub it all in, there's this comment from an audience member at last night's taping of the Daily Show (with Bill Gates as the special guest):

"Do they advertise? I didn't think they advertised." audience member Skye Reiner, 31, of Los Angeles, referring to Microsoft, when asked how she thought its advertising compared to Apple's ads.

Ek herhaal jou*

* (Afrikaans) = I repeat you

I've been enjoying two CDs by Chris Chameleon that I got from CD Baby recently, one of which is titled "Ek herhaal jou". It features songs using the poems by South African poet Ingrid Jonker (Wikipedia entry). I had forgotten that Nelson Mandela read her poem, The Child, in the original Afrikaans when he opened the first session of parliament after he was elected.
She was awarded the South African National Order of Merit in 2004. (More info on her, but in Dutch, here)

There a story here about Chris' move from his previous band Boo! to this particular project.

PS: Look for a copy of her poems in English from a local library by going here.

New music

I'm happy to report that the new Shins album arrived this week, and is great! They'll be performing in Seattle soon - I can't wait. Although I must say their performance on Saturday Night Live was a little underwhelming. Hopefully it was just a TV thing...

I've also discovered a few new artists that I thought I'd share with you, my readers. If you subscribe to a music service like Napster or Rhapsody, check them out.

• First off is Beirut, heard on KEXP one night. (They have a new EP, Long Gisland). The lead singer sounds like Thom Yorke from Radiohead, but the music is more acoustic and gypsys-inspired, with a good bit of brass. [Amazon link]
• Second, is Peter Bjorn and John, recommended on Napster for folks that like The Shins and The Decemberists. Dreamy, literate pop music. [Amazon link]
• Third, is Ray. I forget how I found them, but they're great. More rock than pop (lots of guitars), with varied songs, but a darker, more mellow sound mostly. At times they remind me of the South African band Sharkbrother. [Amazon link]
• And last is Teddy Bears. Their song, Punkrocker, features Iggy Pop and is being used in a car advert on TV at the moment. It's insanely catchy - you have been warned! The rest of the album is very varied, with a bit or rap and hip-hop, and a pervading upbeat dance tempo. [Amazon link]

Some thoughts on Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

I found myself getting hooked on this new show quite quickly - the writing is smart and the dialog is witty and fast-paced. It's the sort of show that requires your full attention, and rewards your effort with lots of quick smiles, jolts of surprise and excitement, and a feeling that you've just ridden a really fun amusement ride.

The sad thing is that the show seems to not be doing well with viewers and may be cancelled due to low ratings. The show is by no means perfect: The major weakness being that the show's comedy routines and comedy stars are not that funny. That's a bit of a problem when the show is meant to be about a comedy show. Ken Levine's blog has an interesting comment on the show, and a link to a YouTube parody/comment on the show.

(Psst! Ken's blog is well worth subscribing to)

I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope that Aaron Sorkin won't go too far into the Romantic Comedy swampland in an attempt to lure viewers.

What to do with sunchokes?

So, we're signed up with an organic grocery delivery service (Pioneer Organics), and get to tweak our order online before it's delivered. We noticed local sunchokes available, and decided to try some. (Sunchokes are also called Jerusalem Artichokes, some good info on Wikipedia as usual).

The only problem was what do you do with them? I'd never cooked them before, so I headed off to Foodtv.com to look for recipes. It looks like there are basically 3 options:

• Mash them like potatoes
• Bake them (a la gratin)
• Make soup

We went for the last option this time around, and this recipe turned out very nicely. The sunchokes have a slightly sweet taste, with an earthy tone - quite like artichokes.

Is any wine worth $700?

Slate has an article by Mike Steinberger that answers this question (at least as far as he's concerned). From the opening:

This is a story about a bottle of wine. A very expensive but also very delicious bottle of wine—a wine that so captivated me when I first tasted it that I immediately resolved to taste it again. What followed was an almost two-year odyssey that tested the limits of my resourcefulness and perhaps also exposed the warping effect that wine has had on my brain.

One of the fun things about being on Garagiste's email list is seeing the really expensive wines come around. Wines that cost $4,000 and more per bottle. Needless to say I haven't bought any of them, but it's always interesting to see the description of the wine and how it's marketed to folks that would consider spending that much...

My own mental upper limit seems to be around $40 for a wine, although I've spent $60+ for some Domaine des Relagnes Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Petits Pieds de l'Armand and the Barolo Chinato.