Cake Eater Chronicles

Gratuitous Too Darn Hot Vino Posting

It's so bloody hot outside and I know exactly how I'm going to feel by the time I've staggered home from work.

I wish I enjoyed white wine more than I do. Times like this, a large glass with a couple ice cubes tossed in can be very refreshing after the commute from hell. Problem is, white wine gives me a very particular kind of headache, even if I only have a little bit.

On the other hand, you can't really toss ice cubes into a glass of red. Not one worth drinking, anyway. Unless you're putting together a pitcher of sangria.

Now there's an idea......

Any suggestions on what makes a good sangria base?

Gratuitous Netflix Cluelessness

Okay, because of one thing and another, I've now seen The Forty Year Old Virgin twice in the course of about two weeks.

Granted, it has its moments. And overall, it's moderately entertaining. But why do so many people seem to go bananas over it? What am I missing here? And am I the only one who thinks the whole thing could have been done in a lot less time?

Oh, by the way. Don't leave the case lying around:

Eight Year Old: "The forty year old....virjib.. virgim...virgin. Daddy, what's a virgin?"

Self: "Ermmmmm......well, you're a bit young to understand. I'll tell you some other time."

Gratuitous Tee-Vee Cluelessness

What is it I'm not getting about Hell's Kitchen?

I finally saw a few minutes (just a few) last evening.

I mean, which is worse, the nasty, foul-mouthed martinent of a boss or the herd of "contestants" who allow themselves to suffer his abuses?

Pretty pathetic all round, if you ask me.

Gratuitous Luddite Posting

Know what I hate? Those automatic air-fresheners in restrooms that use sensors to determine when it's time for them to give a puff of scent.

They're such liars!

Gratuitous Grammatical Griping

Let's review:

One uses "amount" when speaking of the total quantity of some one thing, e.g. "a large amount of water" or "a small amount of money."

One uses "number" when speaking of units of something, e.g. "a large number of gallons" or "a small number of pennies."

Following on this, one does not say "a large amount of people." It's "a large number of people." Yet I've seen the former expression more and more recently, even in the writing of some authors one would expect to know better. I'm not talking about bloggers writing on the fly, either. I mean professional writers backed up (presumably) by legions of editors.

What is this world coming to?

I may need a large number of wine in order to cope.

UPDATE: I see I'm not the only one bewailing the death of the gentle art of editing.

Gratuitous Random Movie Quotes

Here's another than always makes me smile:

"Ha! You got that? Ha! Ha!"

Can you guess the movie? (Be warned, it's a trick question.)

UPDATE: Well, the results have been overwhelming. We had to cut off the email account late last night just to keep the whole system from being swamped.

As for your guesses, well, they were pretty varied. I suppose I could see John Wayne saying this. But Julie Andrews? Daffy Duck was a pretty popular suggestion and while wrong, would be distinctly plausible.

Of course, most of you thought it was Marlon Brando's Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. A completely logical choice. But I told you it was a trick question. And here's the trick:

See, what I always think of isn't Brando's Kowalski. Instead, it's Diane Keaton mimicking Brando's Kowalski in the Woody Allen movie Sleeper.

So no winners today. However, because nobody succeeded in guessing correctly, that simply means that the prize of a full day's supply of Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat will be doubled next time.

See you then!

Signs I May Have A Problem

I just spent five minutes in a Word document I'm working on wondering why typing in "blockquote" wasn't causing a paragraph to indent on both sides.

Sheesh.

Perhaps it's just the heat.

Perhaps not.

(Off topic but btw: Thanks, Kathy, for your email. The Tasty Bits (TM) Mail Sack is acting up again, so I couldn't respond directly, but I do appreciate it.)

Saaaaa-wing, Battah, Battah!

Assuming we don't get rained out, I'll be joining my office's softball team down the National Mall this evening. It'll be the first time I've played since I started my new job two years ago. I only hope I remember which end of the bat to hold.

I've played on various firm teams around here for better than twelve years. There's just something right about playing softball just down the hill from the White House or across the way from the Washington Monument. Sort of All-American and yet right at the Center of Things.

Plus, and here I confess to the completely unworthy sin of pride, it do make the tourons gawp at you. Because if you're playing ball on the Mall, you just might be one of the Important People, d'ye see.

Let 'em wonder.

UPDATE: A pleasant evening was had by all. The other team forfeited for lack of players, so we all just played an impromptu hit around. Since I'm way out of shape, I took it pretty easy but still got a couple of respectable hits. Also, I made no (obvious) fielding errors and caught one long, high ball.

It rained on us off and on and between that and the fact that we were all drenched in sweat from the heat & humidity, I was perfectly disgusting by the time I got on the Metro.

Shameless Self Promotion

A new site, Cambrian House, has finally gone and made the dreams of all the speculators in the open source community into a real business.

It's like Open Source, but with money!
Cambrian House's mission is to discover and commercialize
software ideas through the wisdom and participation of crowds.
Contributors earn royalties, sharing in the success of the products.

People submit ideas. The ideas participate in "Idea Warz". (I'm not a fan of the spelling choice there.) And the strongest ideas as voted on by the community go into a development process. The development process will be community based as well.

I think it is a great application of the ideas to monetize open source software that have been floating around for a long time. In fact, I've put up some ideas myself. Click on the icons below to see just how silly some of them can be (and VOTE for them if you like them).

Internet TV Portal

Computers for Everyone

Real Estate Agent Rankings

Beyond Blogging to Reporting

Online Music Storage, Manipulation & Sharing.

The only thing I have to complain about so far is the 1000 character restriction for posting ideas. In understand the need to keep the initial submissions concise, but some of the ideas I come up with are more fully fleshed out.

Gratuitous Random Movie Quotes

One of my favorites, which always puts a smile on my face:

Bill: You ditched Napoleon?

Ted: Deacon! Do you realize you've stranded one of Europe's greatest leaders?

Deacon: He was a dick!

Heh. Snappy and true.

Random Commuter Observation

I don't know what the experience of you devoted Cake Eater fans is with subways out there in the rest of the world, but here in Dee Cee, at least, they always come to a stop at the stations at regulated points. This means that every time they stop, the doors always open up in the same place relative to the platform.

Yet even with this predictability, I notice very few people tactically lining themselves up to be first through the doors when the train stops, the better to get a seat (especially at rush hour).

I can understand the tourons not getting it, but you'd think more regulars would pick up on this trick.

Me? I've got it down to specific tiles on the platform.

"Please don't taunt the llamas"

(part one of a completely pointless series of sports inspired taunts directed toward Blogistan's favorite camelids)

"HEY LLAMA LLAMA LLAMA LLAMA LLAMA SWING LLAMA LLAMA LLAMA!

LLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMA LLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAMA

Lamest. Fourth. Ever.

My holiday celebration? I cooked myself a couple cheeseburgers and spent the evening watching "Cops" reruns on Court-TV.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I hereby claim the Crown o' Lameness. Bow down before me!

Ah, The Joys Of The Office

Y'know, nothing makes my day brighter than sitting in my office and listening to the woman next door having a vicious fight on the phone with her ex over how he's treating the children.

Yes, indeedy.