SIFF wrap-up

The 2nd week-and-a-bit of SIFF has come and gone, so here is my festival summary (see part 1 here)


The Ferryman: 3/5
A decent horror/thriller from New Zealand that starts strong and gets a little tedious near the end of the second half. Warning: There's lots of blood and violence, and a scene involving a dog that I really disliked - this film is not for the squeamish.
The introduction to the characters is nicely done, and the tension and slow unraveling if the relationships onboard the yacht is brilliant. The tight, claustrophobic setting below decks works very well, and the pervasive fog works to further ratchet up the tension. There's also a great performance by John Rhys-Davies as a Greek fisherman. The finale where the evil spirit gets its come-uppance was a let-down, and the titular ferryman was a bit lame, but the twist at the very end is nice.


2 Days in Paris: 4/5
Julie Delpy is amazing in this film, and does more than just act (she wrote, directed and composed the music!) An amusing look at what happens when Marion brings her American boyfriend to Paris to visit her family. Encounters with her numerous ex-boyfriends, crazy family, and American-in-France culture clash leads to some really funny stuff, all done in a natural, light style. The movie feels very much like a slice of real life, and the exploration of love, commitment and joie-de-vivre make this a rewarding and charming film.


Mushishi: 3/5
Based on a Japanese manga, this film was visually beautiful but too long and disjointed to hold my interest. The film stitches a few "episodes" from the magna together using one story as the backbone. Unfortunately the backing story is not that interesting, and the whole movie takes itself far too seriously. I kept expecting the reverent, hushed narration to explain things more sensibly than they did, and for the movie to somehow make sense, but in the end the film leaves the viewer confused and frustrated. Some nice visuals and interesting characters lift this from being a total waste of time, but go in expecting a slow, confusing, few hours.


Retribution (Sakebi): 2/5
Another Japanese film, this one billed itself as a "supreme psycho-thriller" from Japan's horror master Kiyoshi Kurosawa. (I've not seen his previous films). This one started out promisingly, with the lead character, detective Yoshioka, investigating the murder of a woman. He quickly finds that he's implicated, even though he has no memory of the girl or her death. Other deaths indicate a serial killer is on the prowl, and as our sympathy for Yoshioka develops slowly we also start to doubt his own innocence more and more.

This is the movies strongest point, I think: the slow, careful development of the detective character and the way the audience is both attracted and repulsed from him. I did like the way the mini-earthquakes hitting Tokyo are used throughout the film, and the way ripples in puddles or bowls of water hint at the veil between this world and the sprit world. Towards the end, though, the movie devolves into a ghost-revenge movie, and at times becomes so campy/cheesy that the earlier atmosphere is squandered. The ending is really unsatisfying and leaves you feeling duped.


Broken English: 5/5
Featuring an amazing performance from Parker Posey, this film looks at the life of a single thirty-something woman in New York as she struggles to find a rewarding relationship and get out of a rut of one-night stands and loneliness. This film manages to balance the humour and pathos of her life beautifully and while it might be billed as a romantic comedy, the comedy is really just the icing on an uncontrived, refreshing dramatic look inside the main character's life. The ending is maybe a bit too fairy-tale-ish and the basic storyline has been told many times before, but as a whole this film stood out as being an interesting take on an old theme.


Lady Chatterley: 4/5
A French film based on the 2nd version of D.H. Lawrence's novel, with all the English names and places preserved. If you know the story, you know it looks at the class barrier, human relationships and sexuality. Those expecting a steamy, sexy movie will probably be disappointed (although prudes will also not be happy) - there's plenty of nudity and sex, but it's all done in a very natural, tasteful way. The two leading actors are brilliant, and pefectly cast. I've heard some people say that the gamekeeper, Parkin, is not attractive enough to justify Lady Chatterley falling for him, but I think he's perfect. Initially appearing gruff and not likeable at all, we slowly get to see him thaw and open up as the relationship develops, and the gradual maturation of the relationship is stunningly well done. By the end I truly was rooting for the two lovers, who develop much more than a physical bond, and the film ends on a much happier note than the final 3rd novel would lead you to expect.

Highly recommended to fans of patient, natural storytelling.

Cthulhu: 4/5
If David Lynch made a movie based on H.P. Lovecraft's works, this would be it. Filmed in Seattle, WA and Astoria, OR, this movie takes the Cthulu mythos as a basis and adds lots of small-town weirdness, family tension, and end-of-days gloom. Everything is mixed together in interesting, refreshing ways. I had a bit of a problem believing that the leading character's father was actually his father - somehow both men looked about the same age. Apart from that, though, the first 2/3 of the movie are great - full of interesting characters, including Tori Spelling as the local bimbo with a desperate need to have a child. The lead character, who is gay, finds himself the object or her desire, with some funny and macabre results.

The film makes careful use of actual monsters, going for the approach that what is imagined or half-seen is more scary than what is fully seen. The tension and level of unease build nicely as the hero learns more about the town's secrets. Things started falling apart for me towards then end though, and the final scene seemed to have been tacked on without any thought as to how the "hero" got there - either a big chunk of the film got cut for time, or I'm too dense to appreciate the final twist of the movie.

Read an interview with the film-makers here.

Bayete Nkosi!

I just realised that the excellent South African TV series depicting King Shaka's life is available in the USA on DVD (Netflix have it).

This was produced in the mid-80's when I was a young teen, and made a huge impression on me. It was a huge hit in South Africa, and the theme tune found its way into many people heads, so that you'd find walking around singing "Bum-bum-bum BA-bum BA-bum BA-bum... Bayete Nkosi!"

There was an urban legend that the actor that played Shaka, Henry Cele, was a garbage collector prior to being discovered, but I see from the Wiki entry that's not true (he was a goalie for several pro soccer clubs)

Some advice: The "sequel" (Shaka Zulu: The Last Great Warrior) is really bad. But then you probably knew that already since is starts The Hoff.

Flight of the Conchords on HBO

I saw a teaser for the new HBO series "Flight of the Conchords". I've wrtten about these guys before (see this post). This is a new series following "the trials and tribulations of a two man, digi-folk band from New Zealand as they try to make a name for themselves in their adopted home of New York City."

Update: I just noticed Slate have a story on the show.

Hopefully it will make its way to DVD so I can watch it :)

Olympic Sculpture Park

Seattle Sculpture Park
Originally uploaded by Mr Snootyhamper

A month or two ago, A and I went to the newly-opened Olympic Sculpture Park and took a few pictures. The one you see here is called "Eagle", and I'm quite pleased with the way the Space Needle is framed.

There are a few other pics in the set on flickr.

Cooking home-made pasta

Cooking home-made pasta
Originally uploaded by Mr Snootyhamper

... and finally cooking! Yum! (Of course we didn't eat it plain like this - A made a great tomato sauce with some red wine, but the picture of the sauced pasta looks a bit like bloody guts, so I'll save you from the horror of seeing it...)

Drying home-made pasta

Drying home-made pasta
Originally uploaded by Mr Snootyhamper

Here is the pasta drying...

Rolling pasta

Rolling pasta
Originally uploaded by Mr Snootyhamper

This past weekend A and I finally got around to using the pasta machine my mom gave us for Christmas. We used 100% semolina (durum wheat flour) from Bob's Red Mill and it turned out very nicely.

As you can see in this picture, A is quite deft at rolling out the dough!

Amazing video from Kruger Park

I stumbled on this incredible video footage shot in Kruger Park. It's long, but definitely worth watching...



Update: 6/11/2007

Apparently at the Webby Awards this past weekend, one of the founders of YouTube mentioned this video as one his favourites!

New Iain Banks sci-fi in the pipeline

I've been a huge fan of Iain Banks' work since my friend Craig introduced me to them a little over a decade ago. I think I started with his first Culture book, Consider Phlebas.

While in Canada recently, I noticed a new novel by Iain Banks on sale, titled The Steep Approach to Gabardale. I balked a bit at the price (it seems books in Canada are more expensive than in the US), but as a result I have to wait for the book to be published in America in October...-

While looking around on Wikipedia today I saw there's a new science fiction novel due in 2008, apparently titled Matter.

I can't wait!

SIFF week one

I saw my first handlful of SIFF movies last week, most of which were great!
Here's my quick review of them:

Outsourced: 5/5
A great movie by local writer/director John Jeffcoat. A Seattle-based online marketing execute finds out his division (and his job) have been outsourced to India, and he has to go train his replacement. The usual culure shocks and misunderstandings occur as West meets East, but the film is saved from being too sappy or cliched by the excellent cast, especially the lead Josh Hamilton. The film is funny, warm and uplifting without being saccharine.
Check out the movie's blog here.

Black Sheep: 3/5
A film from New Zealand that tells the terrible tale of what might happen if bio-engineering goes too far. This is a comedy/horror movie in the vein of Shawn of the Dead, with lots of over-the-top gore, gross humour, and some nice send-ups of the green/hippie movement. At time it drags a bit, though, and some of the fart jokes wore a bit thin.

Cashback: 5/5
A wonderfully quirky film about time, relationships and the beauty of the female form, seen through the eyes of a guy who develops insomnia after a painful break-up, and decided to work the night shift at Sainsbury's. He imagines he can slow and even stop time, and uses this power to capture moments of beauty (as well as have some fun with his boss). Filled with hilarious vignettes involving his zany co-workers and egotistical boss, as well as some very clever visual tricks. The movie makes you realize the value of every instant and the beauty that surrounds us, if we only take the time to notice it.

Death at a Funeral: 3/5
A British movie by director Frank Oz. This is a solidly-made comedy filled with dark humour (you need to be able to laugh at the misfortune and discomfort of others to enjoy this movie). Solid performances from the entire cast, and some hilarious scenes made me almost give this a 4/5, but the over-abundance of toilet-humour and people-on-acid-trips-are-funny scenes made me lower this to a 3.

I heard the news today, oh boy...

Happy 40th birthday to Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band!

NPR's All Songs Considered has a rememberance from host Bob Boilen.

BBC Radio 2 will broadcast a two-part documentary on June 2nd and June 16th (Part 1 should be available for viewing online after 21h00 tomorrow)

lolcats, lolcode and lolluscs?

So, the lolcat Internet meme is in full swing.

Slate had a nice slideshow on lolcats a while ago, Anil Dash posted on lolcat grammar, and there's now the lolcode programming language.

While browsing through ICANHASCHEEZBURGER, I found what is probably my favourite lolcat picture - the only weird thing it features a snail... Hence, lollusc.

KTHXBYE

Summer wine time

Summer has arrived in Seattle, with temperatures in the 90's F (above 32 C).

For me that means I move away from my usual predilection for red wines and start drinking white and rosé.

Now, my small wine collection is sadly lacking in rosé wines (as in I have none). Rosé wines seem to have a reputation in the USA (and even back in South Africa) as cheap, sweet wines for ladies (or gents) that don't like "real wine". I beg to differ... While sweet rosé is not my thing, I really enjoy a good dry rosé. I've heard some good things about the Toad Hollow "Eye of the Toad" Pinot Noir Rosé, and hope to try it out this summer.

I enjoyed my first real "summer wine" last night - a fun, delicious off-dry German riesling: 2005 Saint M (from the Pfalz region). I gave it a highly scientific 88 points. A little simple and "one-dimensional" maybe, but then I don't expect anything too complex from a summer quaffer.

If you're keen to try some, I got mine from the Larry's Market in Redmond a while back...

Mushrooms near our house

Mushroom
Originally uploaded by Mr Snootyhamper

I noticed these mushrooms popping up a few days ago, and went back yesterday to take some pics now that they are fully open. Sadly, they've been damaged a bit, but they're still impressive and quite beautiful.

They were growing under a cedar tree, and when I first noticed them they were almost pure-white round bulbs pushing through the cedar leaf litter.

Now they have brown, cracked caps and amazing brown gills. I'm not sure what they are exactly (I left them instead of collecting a specimen to do a spore print), but I might have a shot at identifying them using my copy of Mushrooms Demystified...

SA wine on Wine Library TV

I must confess I don't watch Wine Library TV very much. It's a video blog thingy that looks quite good, but hasn't quite made it onto my list of regular blogs/websites.

A recent entry about South African wine did catch my eye though, and I liked host Gary's attitude. If you're interested in South African wine check this episode out, and if you're generally into wine and not aware of Wine Library TV, well now you know about it.

The Luhn algorithm

Ever wondered how online stores quickly validate that you've typed in your credit card number correctly?

It turns out the credit card number has a built-in checksum, which enables the online store to quickly check whetehr you've made a typo (or just tried to make up a bogus credit card number). The algorithm is called the Luhn agorithm, named after it's inventor who came up with it back in 1950s while at IBM.

The link above has some C# code you can use to check that a number passes the check, or to generate a number that meets the requirements. (You can also put together an Excel spreadsheet quite easily :) )

Of course, this is not meant to be secure - it's meant to detect human errors, not prevent against malicious users.

Now, I wonder how the security number on the back of my credit card is validated?

The Twisted Cork

There's a relatively new wine bar in downtown Bellevue called the Twisted Cork. (At least, I think it's new, since I have not seen it before or heard about it much.)
One reason it's escaped my notice until now is that it's tucked away in the Hyatt Regency Hotel - a short walk from Bellevue Square. (See the Seattle Weekly review here).

Gor bless 'em - they have a Pinotage section in their wine list! (Admittedly they only have two , but I'll take what I can get...) They get more credit for having a few other South African wines on their list :)

PS: May 23-27th is the Culinary & Wine Showcase, spread out over the 3 shopping malls in downtown Bellevue - more info here.

Seattle Cheese Festival

The Seattle Cheese Festival takes place this coming weekend (May 18-20) at Pike Place Market. I may just have to head over and taste some cheeese, Gommit!

And speaking of cheese, KUOW's Weekday today focused on artisanal cheese producers, and featured Mother Noella Marcellino, a cheese artisan and cheese microbiologist, as well as a Benedictine nun. She was the subject of the PBS documentary The Cheese Nun.

Skinner's Drift

I've just finished read Skinner's Drift, the debut novel by Lisa Fugard. Lisa is the daughter of the famous South African playwright Athol Fugard.

This is a wonderful book: It gives you a good view into typical life on a border farm towards the end of Apartheid, the tensions between English and Afrikaaners, as well as between black and white South Africans. I really liked her writing style too - she paints vivid images and her prose is lean and powerful.

More reviews on Amazon here.

Ding-dong, the Comcast/MicrosoftTV is dead!

Hooray! Comcast in Seattle announced today that they will be replacing the Microsoft TV software on their set-top boxes. I only pray the new software is better - more responsive, less prone to crashing, and generally less sucky.

Compared to TiVo and our old ReplayTV unit, the Comcast HD DVR has always felt like a pedal-powered boat versus a sleek ocean liner. HD is nice, though, for the few shows that we watch in HD. (Planet Earth is mind-blowing).

Now I can focus on my one remaining wish: Automatic commercial skip, or even just 30-second forward-skip. Will it be enabled on the Comcast HD DVR? Time will tell...

Chateau Faire Le Pont

On Saturday, A and I joined K and friends for her birthday celebration at Trader Vic's in Bellevue. We had a great time, and K held up her end of the deal and had a flower-laden cocktail (albeit not served in an embarassing vase or tiki mug...)

The highlight for me was a great wine discovery (thanks to the very friendly sommelier / wine expert). For some reason I usually get saddled with the fun job of picking wine when our group of friends go out, and being on a budget means that 75% of the wines are off-limits. (We usually aim for a bottle that's $40 or less).

I described our price range and what I was in the mood for (an old-world-style Shiraz/Syrah, not too fruit-forward or over-ripe), and the sommelier recommended the 2003 Chateau Faire Le Pont Syrah, from Wenatchee in Washington ($42).

She was spot-on! This is a really delicious wine, dark, velvety and smooth with a lovely aroma of chocolate and spice. It has a full, ripe flavour with enough structure and tannins to balance things out.

I'll add this winery to my list of ones to visit when next I'm in near Wenatchee (Vin du Lac is another favourite).

Sip

A and I went to Sip last night for the first time - I had seen them listed in the current New Urban Eats promotion. I must say, I was quite impressed! I'd recommend this place for wine-lovers and people looking for good, inventive food in a lively setting.

The atmosphere was a little too loud for conversation initially, but it got quieter once the bar counter emptied out a bit. Our waitress was friendly (and keen to show off her wine knowledge - she was studying to be a sommelier).

The food was really delicious - quite creative and nicely presented too. One nice thing is that for New Urban Eats, you can actually choose from almost all items on the menu (so don't worry if the menu on the Urban Eats website doesn't appeal too much). There is only one vegetarian entree though - ravioli. I had "chip and dips" as an appetizer - pita bread wedges with hummus, tapenade, and malidzano (eggplant spread). A had a great salad with rhubarb and spicy pecans. For my main I had the scalops which are served with an Israeli couscous salad and curry-yoghurt sauce - excellent! A had the ravioli (filled with caramelized fennel, onions, and cheese, with a very good tomato sauce).
The desserts were incredible - very rich but worth it. I really liked the croissant bread pudding (almost like an almandine bread pudding) - probably best saved for a cold winter night though.

The wine selection is pretty decent: a lot of Californian and Washington wines, with some Spanish, Italian, French, German, Aussie, New Zealand, Chilean and Argentinean fleshing out the list. There seemed to be almost no South African wine by the bottle - just one Chardonnay and one Sauvignon Blanc. I'm not a huge fan of their wine list format: the wines are broken into broad groups according to weight/body, and then listen alphabetically by varietal within the group (mostly - Italian and French wines are listed by region/appelation)

I had a 1/2 glass of a New Zealand Pinot Noir (which was decent but not amazing), and a very rich, full-bodied Chianti (which was more like a Brunello di Montalcino).

Note: Wednesday night is 1/2 price wine night - bottles of wine under $100 are half price. Worth knowing if you are coming with a group of wine-lovers...

What's your daemon?

What's your familiar or daemon?

As part of the marketing for the up-coming movie of The Golden Compass, the movie website has one of those ubiquitous questionnaires that ends up telling you what your deamon is. This one is a little more slick and polished than most (with nice graphics), and also alows you to post the results for your friends to "correct". (So you can't get away with calling yourself modest, good-looking and talented...)

My daemon came out as a snow leopard after going through the questions... Let's see if it stays that way after the hordes on the Intrawebs give their feedback.

Wine bar in Issaquah

After enjoying a stunningly beautiful sunny afternoon, A and I headed down to Issaquah for dinner at the local pub. On the way, I noticed a new place on Front Street that looks pretty good: A wine bar called Vino Bella...

Their tapas, wine and beer list is online, and looks very good (although prices are conspicuously absent...) I'll be trying it out in the not-too-distant future and let you know how it is.

Another excuse to eat out a lot in Seattle

I've only just recovered from the March 25/$25 promotion, and now I see there's a new promotion running through May: New Urban Eats: 3 courses for $30.

The restaurant list is interesting - lots of new places I've not yet been to, and no overlap with 25/$25, so I'm tempted to try a few... I've been to Lola a few times and had great food. Their menu for this promotion looks OK (but I'm not sure they have vegetarian options?)
Crush, and Barolo look interesting. Luciano gets a recommendation from folks at work, and Sip is a new place in the Issaquah Highlands, which is nearby so worth a look...

Vancouver highlights

Despite the car woes, we had a really good time in Vancouver last weekend. Here are a few of the highlights:

• The Pacific Pallisades hotel is highly recommended - it's right on Robson St, so you can walk to most of downtown. Bright, spacious rooms decorated in a modern mediteranean style. Wonderful friendly service, and there's a nice restaurant downstairs for breakfast.
• Liberty Wine Merchants have a few stores around the city - one on Robson Street near our hotel, and one on Granville Island. The store manager at the Robson St. store was really friendly, and their selection is great. I was very happy to see their large selection of South African wines (compared to most Washington State stores), and they had a lot of wines from SA that I'd not seen before. They also had some really good Italian wines (a few Brunello di Montalcino's that were tempting but a bit out of my price range...) And they had a Barolo Chinato that looked good. Of course they also have a great selection of wines from British Columbia - we bought a Cab/Merlot from the Okanagon Valley as a gift for some friends.
• There are some great coffee shops. A new chain, Blenz, seems to have popped up since I last visited Vancouver a few years ago. They are quite prevalent - I think I counted three on Robson St - and their drinks are very good. Their dark chocolate mocha is great (maybe even better than the Dilletante dark mocha that Tully's used to have). They also have some really good tea lattes: in addition to the normal chai tea latte, they have a matcha latte, and a few black tea lattes (London Fog, which is Earl Grey and vanilla, and Royal Tea, which has rose petals). Yummy!
  Another coffee place to go to is Caffe Artigiano - I had visited them a few years ago, and they have the best coffee I've tasted in Vancouver.
• Definitely take a walk down Robson to Denman St, and head left. Denman St is full of interesting shops, cafes, restaurants, etc. and takes you down to the English Bay park. This is a great spot to watch the sun set on a sunny day. The Denman Street Free House is a nice pub/restaurant with tables that give you a view of the bay. The barman was really friendly, and their mussels are not bad. (The waitresses have a bit of a 'tude though...)
• Speaking of Denman Street, that's where you'll find an amazing dessert restaurant: True Confections. They've won all sorts of awards, and it's easy to see why - their cake selection is huge, they are all lovingly-made and very tasty. This place is informal and full of energy - more like Seattle's B&O than the now-defunct Coco La Ti Da.
• Yummy Belgian chocolates are to be had at Daniel's on Robson Street.
• The huge Chapter's bookstore is worth a visit. While books in Canada are more expensive in the US, they get some books earlier than the US does. For example, I saw the new Iain Banks novel, Steep Approach to Garbadale. They also have a fun list of famous Canadians decorating the wall as you ride up the escalator to the upper level. :)
• We finally got to see Granville Island Public Market on Saturday, and it was fantastic. If you're staying downtown, I'd recommend taking the water taxi from the Aquatic Centre. The market is about 4 times the size of Pike Place Market in Seattle, and the produce seemed even better (too bad we can't shop here every week!). They also have a nice food court and outside seating (for the few days the sun is shining). The market is surrounded by buildings with interesting stores (clothing, homewares, soap, native art and touristy gifts, ...) The hat store would have made H a very happy lass! There was also an incredible street performer from England (Barry, I think... Barry, if you read this: You rock!)

Vancouver, eh?

I was in Vancouver BC last week for a conference and padded out my stay so that A and I could spend the weekend there together. We had a great time over the weekend, with the only wrinkle being some "fun" during the drive back down to Seattle.

The drive back was already destined to be "fun" after my car was broken into on Thursday mornin (while parked in the hotel parking lot!) I was not a happy camper when I found out about the break-in and had to rush down to the hotel lobby at 6am on Thursday morning. Luckily, I had nothing of any real value in my car - the thief only stole small transmitter I use to listen to my Zen Micro (MP3 player) in the car. Aparently, Vancouver has a huge drug problem and petty theft (especially car break-ins) is a big problem.

My car looked pretty sad - the thief had tried to pry open the passenger door using some tool, and fr@cked up the door frame nicely. He* had also tried to do something to the door near the lock, which ended up seperating the metal in the door panel. Finally, he decided to break the passenger window, and grab his loot...

The hotel did a quick patching job with a sheet of plastic and duct tape, but for the long ride down I knew I needed something tougher, so I ended up buying a roll of clear duct tape and taping the heck out of the window. It actually looked quite nice - a bit like a pale curtain. (Of course, looking into my side mirror was now not possible, but hey - that's what passengers in the back seats are for!)

I'm happy to say we all made it back from Vancouver safely, and didn't have any problems crossing the border, even with the sad state of my car...

In closing, my advice to you, if you're visiting Vancouver and are thinking of driving up:

1. Take the train or bus up instead and rent a car in Vancouver. (Make sure you have insurance coverage for the rental too)
2. If you really want to drive up in your own car, make sure the hotel you stay in has decent security in their parking lot! :)

Next up, a quick list of the discoveries and fun places we went to in Vancouver.

---
* Hotel security saw the thief fleeing the scene, and said he was male...

FIGWIT

So, this will be a rather odd blog entry. Perhaps you've come to expect that by now? :)

Let's take a little "random walk" around the web together.
First, I stumbled on a trailer for the movie Eagle vs Shark - a quirky film from New Zealand. I was intrigued to see who was behind this, so over to the IMDB main page for the film, where we see Taika Cohen wrote and directed it.

Taika also acted in a NZ documentary called Frodo Is Great... Who Is That?!! (aka FIGWIT)
The "who is that" is Bret McKenzie, a NZ actor that had a small part in one of the Lord of the Rings films. It looks like he has quite a large fan following!

He's also part of the NZ comedy music duo, Flight of the Conchords. (The other member is the actor from Eagle vs Shark!)
Flight of the Concords are very, very funny. There's a lot of video of them on the 'net, but these two are hand-selected by me for your viewing pleasure:

1. Business Time
   
2. Hiphopopotamus vs Rhymenocerous

Kubuntu and VPC - keyboard woes solved

A while back I posted about running Kubuntu under Virtual PC, and mentioned keyboard weirdness I was seeing. Specifically, keys would randomly repeat as if the keys were sticking. This turns out to be a common complaint, and one suggestion I found was to tweak the keyboard settings in Kubuntu.

It turns out this works perfectly. So the two options are:

1. Completely disable repeating keystrokes (so you'll only get one keystroke no matter how long the key is held down for). This works fine, but is a little irritating.
2. Increase the time before a key will start repeating. I think the default is small (60ms) - make it larger and the problem should go away.

To get into the keyboard settings on Kubuntu, log in to KDE, go to System Settings and then Keyboard.

"This will be brief"

A certain wine retailer (which shall remain nameless) has again managed to be both amusing and slightly irritating at the same time. From a recent email from them:

This will be brief as I’m boarding a plane ...

"OK... Why don't you hang on to the email and send it once you land?", I wondered. It's not like this is super-urgent, surely? (The wine is not likely to evaporate while you travel...)

The snippet above hints at these meanings:

1. I'm very busy and very important, so you're best off reading this brief email now, since I'll be too busy later to write up a longer one.
2. I'm so cool I get to travel by air all the time! Do you want to be cool like me? Buy some wine, then!

In case that didn't make you smirk, here's some wine-speak silliness from the same email:

with a dancing personality and the tell-tale aromatics of pepper and flowers (with a fair dose of freshly sifted oregano and thyme)

Ah yes, always sift your herbs, mes amis!

Where there's a beer, there's a way

This YouTube video doesn't inspire confidence in hotel safes...

Come anytime...

I just watched the first episode of the US version of Thank God You're Here!

While the show was not great, I was very pleased and surprised to hear the theme tune: Come Anytime by the Hoodoo Gurus. Somehow I got hooked on them in South Africa (probably thanks to the same DJ that got me hooked on Crowded House and Split Enz)

They seemed to disappear from the international (or South African) music scene after their album Magnum Cum Lauder, so I had pretty much forgotten about them. It turns out their song Come Anytime is the theme for Thank God You're Here! in Aussie too, and the band is back, touring the USA this year.

It seems to be a good year for bands from down under...

Fun things to do with Mandelbrot sets

Option 1: Find out what they are.

Option 2: Render them as ASCII art in Internet Explorer using only Javascript.

Option 3: Find out about Buddhabrot's and then look at this cool animation.

The Willets on Wine

While researching my previous post, I found a cool wine-tasting blog: The Willets on Wine.
Worth checking out (and maybe subscribing to...)

Lindemans South African wine

Today while browsing throught the wine selection at our local big-box grocery store, I stumbled upon three wines from Lindemans that I'd not seen before. The kicker: these were South African wines, not Australian!

There were three varietals in the store: Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and Chardonnay. I bought a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon to taste - I'll let you know how it is... (Judging by this review, they're uncomplicated, drink-now wines).

Lindemans has always been a solid bet - their Bin series wines are some of the first Aussie wines I tried (and liked). Lindemans is now part of the monolithic Foster's Group (which seems to own all the big Aussie wine brands) - so I'm not sure how I feel about them extending their reach to South Africa. (See this article about objections from Australian grape producers )

I guess it's good that the name recognition of Lindemans will help get more people to try South African wine, but there are some sad things...

Their South African wine labels are cute (featuring a springbok), but there is almost no information about the wine. For a $9 bottle, some info about the winery, region the grapes come from, winemaker, etc. would be nice. All the bottle indicates is that the wine comes from South Africa (they have a helpful map of Africa on the back of the bottle with South Africa highlighted). How hard would it be to say where in SA the wine comes from?

Another peeve is that there's also no "Wine & Spirits board" seal on the wine (which can indicate wine quality, similarly to the AoC and DOCG/IGT system in France and Italy). My initial suspicion was that wine from several wineries is bought and imported to Europe or the USA, where it is blended and bottled. However, this article has more details, and it turns out the wines come from Roodezandt Winery in Robertson (the name means Red Sand). To quote the article:

For South Africa he went to the Robertson region of the Western Cape and formed a partnership with Roodezandt Wines. He says South African wines mix a climate similar to Australia's with a bit of European winemaking influence. He bought three reds (merlot, shiraz, cabernet) from the 2005 vintage as finished wines and the '06 chardonnay straight from the tank after vintage.

Roodezandt winemaker Abe Rossouw is now referred to in Lindemans' advertising material as "our man in Africa".

All in all, I'm pleased to see more marketing muscle behind South African wine (which is still hard to find on the West Coast of the US), and wish Roodezandt good luck!

Green Tea is "in"

Slate has an interesting article on America's current obsession with all things green tea. I agree that the hype is over-the-top and the marketing behind some green-tea products is mind-boggling.

My favourite dumb add featuring green tea is the one for Snapple's green-tea drink, where a hapless young man treks to China to find out what EGCG is. The use of nutritional jargon and acronyms is an interesting marketing ploy - green tea must be good if it has a cool compound with a complicated name (so complicated we need an acronym, and so cool that nutritionists have researched it). "Let's not mention it's flavour, or how refreshing it is... let's just tell folks it has tons of EGCG!"

Now, I'll be happy if green tea actually has health benefits - I drink some almost every day. But the reason I drink it is that I enjoy it. I'm not going to pop green-tea pills, or use green-tea soap, just because it's the hot new thing...

The happiest day of my life!

OK, maybe not quite, but it's certainly looking up!

First, I read the initial artist line-up for Bumbershoot and see that Crowded House are performing. Waaa? They're not together anymore...

After a quick Google search, I see that they are in fact back together, and have a new album due out this year with Johnny Marr. (I love his performance of "Down on the corner" on the "7 Worlds Collide" live album).

Marr joins the surviving Crowded House founding members, and new drummer Matt Sherrod who replaces Paul Hester (who died in '05). Johnny Marr certainly seems to be getting around lately: he's also joined local band Modest Mouse...

I'm glad I bought my Bumbershoot tickets early, and can't wait to see the new Crowded House line-up! I wonder if Eddie Vedder will make a guest appearance? :)

Time to get your Windows updates

If you use Windows, now would be good time to hit update.microsoft.com and install MS07-017

Kids today make me feel old

This weekend, Yum Lass and I were looking after her nieces and decided to hed down the local animal shelter to look at dogs. We all jumped into Lass' car with the girls in the back, and were en route when the eldest niece (who is 8) asked "What is this for?" - pointing at the handle to wind the window up and down.

Now, I've never thought about it much, but you have to try pretty hard nowadays to buy a car that has manual windows. The nieces have obviously never been in a car that had them, and to her the handle was some freakish thing with a mysterious purpose. I'm old enough to know what the handle does (and to think that powered windows are a luxury feature).

The eldest niece was quite pleased to discover that we had no way to prevent her from winding the window down (Haha! No window locks!) - doing things the old-fashioned way has it's advantages.

On a related note, she also had to figure out how to lock the door using the antediluvean knob.

Fun with cookies

(Another geeky post)

Recently at work the topic of HTTP cookies came up. (For some background info on HTTP cookie, see this). Most websites that provide a logon form (username & password) use cookies to allow you to save your logon information ("Remember my information on this computer"). Sites also use cookies to store user information if you don't tell the computer to remember your information - these cookies stay around as long as your web browser is open.

Why is this bad? One reason is that it's sometimes possible for people to steal your logon information using what's calls Cross-Site Scripting (XSS). I won't go into that here, but will share some simple mechanisms you can use to inspect cookies, and mess with them. (Nothing here is really new or revolutionary, but was new to me, so I thought I'd share it...)

It turns out your web browser is capable of showing you the cookies for any page you're viewing: just paste

javascript:{alert(document.cookie);}

in the address bar. You should see a window pop up with cookie information, such as this (from Google) :


Some websites requiring a logon will have your username and password right there in the cookie (making it easy for someone to use them if stolen). One example of such a site is www.cellartracker.com. If you have an account there, log on and then use the above javascript to see your info - nifty, eh?

Now let's pretend we're an attacker that has stolen cookies from someone. How would you use them to log into a website? Again, Javascript makes this really easy. Let's take www.cellartracker.com as an example again (I'm not bashing on them, their site is great!)

Log out (if you were logged in), and look at your cookie using the above Javascript. It should only contain one entry, e.g.:

ASPSESSIONIDCCDSQTRS=DNCMEHMBIFCJIPMIOBJOMJIF

Now let's "inject" the logon information we stole (you can use your real CellarTracker information if you have an account). Type in the following in the address bar, replacing and with your info:

javascript:{document.cookie="Password=your password; User=your username";}

The webpage will change to display the cookie values you just set. No problem, just re-enter www.cellartracker.com in the address bar. You should now see the page for logged-in users...

Tweaking cookies using Javascript is an interesting way to do targeted deletion of cookies you don't want hanging around (instead of erasing all cookies). This website covers Javascript and cookies in more depth, and has some examples of deleting cookies.

Note that there's a way to prevent all of the above: HTTP-Only cookies. This tells the web browser to not expose the cookies to the web page in any way (so no script access). They are still sent to the web site when you make requests, but malicious script code running in your browser can't see them or modify them...

The Key Review

The Stormhoek blog recently linked to a The Key Review, a nice Australian wine review site.
Unfortunately there are no RSS feeds for their posts, and the posting schedule is erratic (every month or two), but the wines reviews are well-written and balanced.

For example, here's a review of the 2006 Black Chook VMR I drank at Six Seven in Seattle during the March 25/$25 promotion.

Can't get there from here...

I had no idea how helpful the driving directions on Windows Live Maps are!
I asked it how to get to Tutta Bella in Columbia City from work, and it thoughtfully left out the complicated bits (I probably would have gotten confused anyway...)

French Word-a-Day

Yum Lass found a nice blog titled French Word-a-Day.
It's a bit like a travel blog from your French teacher...

While the postings are not quite daily (more like 2-3 times a week), the entries are really nice, covering an interesting French word with examples of usage, audio recordings to help with pronunciation, and anectdotes about French life (in English). You can read how the blog started here.

Strange word of the day: Copasetic

I ran into the word copasetic for the first time this week. (It's also spelled copacetic)

Wikipedia has an interesting article on this word. Interesting snippets:

• It is an unusual English language word in that it is one of the few words of seemingly unknown origin that is not considered slang in contemporary usage.
• Its use is found almost exclusively in North America, and has been said to have been first widely publicized in communications between the astronauts and Mission Control of the Apollo Program in the 1960s
• It's in the OED, so you know it's a real word... :)
• David Mamet has written an article about its origins, although perhaps in jest.

Cheese, Grommit!

Wensleydale 001
Originally uploaded by Mr Snootyhamper.

I noticed this Wensleydale cheese a few days ago at Whole Foods in Redmond, and had to buy it!

I was expecting the cheese to be a bit more memorable though (given that it's Wallace's favourite). It's actually a little bland, and has texture not unlike drywall. Still, it's better than no cheese...

So, what is Mandrax exactly?

This unusual topic is inspired by hair-dresser I chatted to this past weekend. She was a young American, and quickly asked where I was from after hearing my accent. When I told her I was from South Africa, she started asking me several interesting questions, like "Is it dirty there?"(Err... How do you answer that? Is it dirty here?)

One question was "Are drugs a problem?" (brief answer: Yes, but not a huge problem) While I'm in no way an expert, I felt an urge to explain that most people that use drugs use "recreational drugs" (dagga a.k.a. marijuana), although some harder drugs were a problem, especially Mandrax. This prompted her question: "What's Mandrax?"

I didn't actually know, until today (and thanks in part to a colleague that is having his wisdom teeth out tomorrow, which got me thinking about pain-killers, ...)

Mandrax will be known to most Americans as Quaalude, and the chemical name is Methaqualone. Wiki has a detailed page on this topic, which includes this snippet:

South Africa is the largest abuser of methaqualone in the world. Commonly known as Mandrax, it is not taken orally but is crushed and mixed in a pipe (usually the neck of a broken bottle) with marijuana (known as "dagga") and has become a major problem rivalling crack cocaine as the most abused hard drug in that country. The low price (R30.00 average against R150.00 for crack) of methaqualone together with the ready availability of cheap, low-grade marijuana means it is the preferred hard drug of the low-income section of South African society. Since methaqualone is no longer legally produced, illicit manufacture either in India, or in South Africa itself or other African countries produces methaqualone for the South African market.

(R30 is about $4 today).

So, now I will know how to answer my hair-dresser next time. (And so will you if this topic comes up - don't say you never learn anything useful here!)

More Enomatic news

I came across this website for a chain of wine stores in South Africa that use the Enomatic wine dispensers (like Vino Venue). They're definitely catering to the well-heeled set (with a location in Cavendish Square in Cape Town), but I have to wonder why Seattle doesn't have anywhere like this yet? (Or perhaps we do, but I just don't know about it?)

Maybe the new Woodinville Village development will get one?

San Francisco wine: Vino Venue

A short walk from my hotel was an interesting-looking wine bar called Vino Venue. What makes them unusual is that they are self-service: they feature automated wine-dispensing machines, made by a New Zealand company, Enomatic. (The US agent on the West coast has a page with installations to date, sadly none in Seattle...)

I had read about Vino Venue (or places like them) recently in magazines and the New York Times, so I was very pleased to find them one evening pureley by chance. It turns out they're not new at all (I think they opened at the end of 2004), but they are definitely enjoying continued popularity and attention in the press. (For some older press coverage, see this Wired, or this SFGate story. Whole Foods is also installing Enomatics in their stores.)

I went in around 5:30pm on a weekday, while they were still quiet, and started chatting to the guy behind the register. The system they use is quite elegant - you put money onto a "smartcard" (like a credit-card , but with a tiny computer chip) - with $10 being the minimum. Then you browse through their selection of wines (100+) and find one you like, insert your card, and press a button to get a 1oz (30ml) pour of wine. Each wine costs a different amount, with the cheapest being around $1.20. The most expensive is around $40 a pour. That works out at around $30 if you drank a bottle's worth of their cheapest wine, or $1000 for their most expensive. Obviously this is not a cheap way to get poeg eyed* on wine.

If you're there to drink wine and socialise, you'd be better off ordering a glass or bottle at the bar counter on one side of the shop. You can also buy bottles of wine for what looked like decent prices (Startign in the low teens $ for cheap wines) They also offer a small plate of goodies (a bit like a ploughman's platter), but food is definitely a second thought. (I would have loved a bread & cheese plate, withou the meat... More on that later).

For me this place is a great way to try a few wines without much risk, and I spent a good 30 mins trying wines and generally doing an impression of a wine snob, in solitude. After 6pm things got a little crazy, though, with the local lawyer and financial-types flooding in, including a large private party that practially took over half the space. The feel imediately changed into more of a pick-up bar, with groups of friends huddling together (and blocking access to the wine dispensers), and available singles nervously casting about for the catch of the day. I missed the solitude a little, and it was clear that if you're comign here to focus on tasting wine, you want to come a little earlier...

Their wine selection is good, but with a heavy focus on Californian wine (understandable since this is SF). I was a little surprised to see hardly any wines from Washington (there were quite a few Oregon Pinot Noirs though). One stations featured a few Italian and Spanish wines, and Australia and New Zealand were fairly well represented. No South African wine to speak of (so my dream of tasting a Eben Sadie Columella were dashed).

In terms of wines I remember liking, here are the winners:

• '05 Glamour Puss Pinot Noir, New Zealand. $13 per bottle.
  Ripe and soft Pinot Noir with velvety tannins. Very drinkable and a great value, compares very well with NZ Pinot's in the $20-30 range, although it lacks complexity.


• '05 Cicchitti Malbec / Cab Sauv, Mendoza, Argentina. $?? (I think it was around $20)
  This was an amazing full-bodied wine with loads of structure. Malbec adds a spicy, chocolatey flavour, and the Cabernet and body.


• '04 Tobin James Notorious Cab Sauv, CA, $20 per bottle.
  Wow, and incredibly full-bodied Cabernet with an intense, super-long finish. Initial impact of glycerin and ripe red berry fruit, then tobacco and chocolate. Smooth, perfumed finish that lasts for around 20 seconds and seems to involve a cascade of flavours.

---
* Blotto, sloshed, hammered...

Before the Gorillaz

... there was Deltron 3030.

Thanks to KEXP for introducing me to these guys! It's interesting to listen to their debut album Deltron 3030 and spot the genesis of the Gorillaz' sound.

I must confess that most of the rapping by Del Tha Funkee Homosapien seems lame to me. (I don't really like his lyrics and style of delivery).
Some songs stand out and are worth listening to, though: Mastermind (great sample!), Virus, Madness, and Memory Loss.

San Francsco food: Sanraku Japanese Restaurant @ the Metreon

Sanraku is located in the Sony-owned Metreon complex*, a short complex from the W hotel. I actually walked by on Monday night and thought it looked a bit dodgy (typical cheap sushi place), but the following night, someone suggested we go there for sushi ("Not the best in SF, but good and quite reasonably priced").

Well, if there's better sushi in SF, then those guys have it very, very lucky. Sanraku was easily as good as the best sushi I've had in Seattle (at Izumi or Kisaku).

I ordered the omakase (chef's selection), which was incredible (and a steal at $38). It included several "appetizers": miso soup, salad with funky seaweed, monkfish liver sandwiching roasted eggplant, tempura prawn head. The sushi platter included fresh wasabi (yum!) and a great sushi assortment: tuna, unagi (eel), amaebi (sweet shrimp), gizzard shard, uni (sea urchin), toro (fatty tuna), giant clam, and 4 pieces of 2 kinds of sushi rolls.

Service was superb (handling a large table of tipsy people ain't easy).

Don't be put off by the apearance or location!

Verdict: Amazing!

* They also have another location in SF.

San Francisco food: XYZ Restaurant

I've just returned from a fun trip to San Francisco (I attended Security Opus)

This was my second trip to SF, which I heartily recommend as a fun place to visit, if you haven't ever been. I got the chance to eat at a few interesting places during this trip, which is the focus for this blog entry. I'll also briefly mention some fun places I walked by or heard about, but wasn't able to visit this time around. (Think of these as to-do entries)

First up :

XYZ Restaurant in the W Hotel, where I had dinner late on Sunday nigh, after arriving from the airport. This place (like the entire W) tries desperately to be fashionable and trendy, and ends up being overpriced and not that good.

I started out with an interesting-sounding roasted beet and goat cheese (Humbolt fog) salad, but the salad featured rocket and a powerful vinaigrette, so the beets and goat cheese were totally overpowered.

I chose lobster ravioli for my main course, and this was truly bad - I was ready to send it back, but the waiter never came around to check how it was, and I was so hungry I decided to just eat the best of it and get to bed. The ravioli were very undercooked and chewy, and had almost no filling. The sauce was thin and watery, without an off-putting flavour (boiled lobster shells, but not good). All this was accompanied by thumping dance music from the adjoining bar, and prompt but impersonal service. Including a glass of average rose, the total was $58.00, which is pretty steep given the poor quality.

Overall, not a place I'd recommend. Breakfast there the next morning was OK, but did little to make me change my mind about this place.

Verdict: Style without substance

Kubuntu and VPC

(Warning - this post may be terminally boring to non-geeks)

I have been playing around with several *nix distributions for a while, trying to get the recent versions of Kubuntu and Backtrack2 to boot or install under Virtual PC (VPC).

So far, Backtrack2 has not been happy - it keeps hanging VPC, usually just after the nice splash screen comes up. At one point I managed to get a prompt, but then hit the same hang again. (If anyone has tips on how to get Backtrack2 to work under VPC, let me know)

Kubuntu is much happier - I have an old Edgy Eft (5.1) virtual machine that was running fine, but was painful to use since it would only run in 800x600 mode. After much tweaking I figured out what is needed to get a decent screen resolution, and then decided to move to the latest release of Kubuntu.

There are some blogs/websites with tips on how to install Kubuntu under VPC and tweak the display, but here's the steps I used:

• Mount the Kubuntu ISO in your virtual machine, and start it.
• Hit F4 at the initial prompt, and select 800x600x16. This will allow the install to be visible in VPC.
• You can also let the boot/install option kick off, and switch to a text console when X-Windows gets messed up under VPC. Since this is useful to know how to do (sometimes you'll want to do this once you've got an install on your virtual hard-disk), here's how:
• Hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 (switches to text console 1). You should see a prompt already logged-in.
• Type sudo bash to get a root shell prompt, and cd /etc/X11
• Edit xorg.conf, and change the display depth entry from 24 to 16. You might also want to add some high-resolution display modes to the 16bpp entry (I added "1280x1024")
• You now need to restart the X server for the changes to get picked up. A nifty way to do this is to switch back to the X console (Ctrl-Alt-F7), and then use Ctrl-Backspace to restart X.
• You should now have a display that's usable.

Todo: I still need to figure out how to set the monitor settings so that 1280x1024 is used.

So far, it looks like I'll be sticking to Kubunto 5.10 under VPC, though. Kubuntu 6 has some nasty bugs and the mouse/keyboard behaviour under VPC is terrible... :(

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.

One-note chowders

The New York Times has an interesting (if sad) story about the changing ingredients in seafood chowders, brought about largely by the collapse of the fish resources off the north-eastern coast of the USA.

Like most sons of sons of Maine fishermen, Mr. Bridges, 61, grew up eating fish stews that were as diverse and densely packed as the local waters.

Cod, haddock, white hake, halibut, cusk and dozens of other groundfish, fish that live near the ocean bottom, mingled with clams, shrimp, lobster and mussels under the creamy surface of the stew, cresting a puddle of yellow butter here, a slick of smoky pork fat there.

Today there is nothing but lobster to be fished commercially near Stonington. Lobster floats alone in the local chowder, pinking the cream and, in the mind of food lovers, perhaps elevating Everyman’s dish to luxury status. But when Mr. Bridges looks at a single species stew he sees a dangerously impoverished fishery.

There's a photo-gallery for this story here.

An update on RSS feeds

A while back I posted about problems with my old FeedBurner feeds, and recommended a new feed link. Now that Blogger is out of its beta, the URL has changed. I've also updated FeedBurner, and it may work correctly in terms of showing dates for my posts.

So, you have these options:
Blogger Atom feed: http://willforkforwood.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
Blogger RSS feed: http://willforkforwood.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
FeedBurner feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WillForkForWood/

I'll update my blog template so the FeedBurner feed shows up automatically in future.

Blood Diamond

This is a great, but harrowing, movie. I'd give it more than the 60% it's getting on Rotten Tomatoes - my own score would be closer to 80%.

The Good:

• Leonardo nails the South African/Zimbabwean accent, and gives one of his best performances
• Djimon Hounsou gives a solid performance
• For the most part it's gripping and beautifully filmed
• It's packed full of action and violence, but it's not mindless violence. The film has a message, and while it may be a bit heavy-handed and one-sided in trying to convince you of that message, any film that makes you think is a good thing
• Jennifer Connely is really easy on the eyes

The Bad:

• Jennifer's character is not quite convincing - partly due to poor writing, and partly due to her acting
• The disregard Djimon's character shows for this wife and children after leaving them at a refuge camp to search for his son makes no sense. Lenoardo's character even remarks that the wife and daugher are likely to be raped in the camp, which gets no reaction from Djimon's character. He needs to find his son. The women folk don't seem to be worth a pile of beans...
• The movie was a little flabby - some scenes could have been cut without losing any of the plot or character development
• Some of the child soldier scenes wore thin. Yes, I know they exist, and child sodliers were part of the conflict in Sierra Leone, but the movie couldn't quite carry this in addition to the "diamonds are bad" message

Side Notes:

I got a kick out of seeing a lot of familiar South African actors - Arnold Vosloo and Marius Weyers are baddies again (they've been in a few US films and are always cast as baddies), and Jonathan Pienaar has a small role too. (I saw him act on stage when I was younger).

I also chuckled when I realized where the final scene was filmed - at the Centre for the Book in Cape Town. I remember serving snacks and pouring drinks there when my mom provided the in-house catering there. :)