Back from the calamitous vacation o' calamity, which wrapped up with 10+ hours in the car. First, I drove down to Delaware to pick up Sarah. That went fine. Well except for the part where I got on NJ Turnpike going north instead of south. I think I reeled off every curseword I know and then started making up new ones when I saw that sign for exit 12. But other than that, not to bad this morning and it only took about 2.5 hours including the wrong way detour and stopping for fuel and coffee. But the traffic from DE to NC was brutal. Over 8 hours. Oy! But we made it. Rewarded ourselves with Pizza Palace for dinner. Mmm... pizza...

Refer to Sarah's blog for details of her family's week. As for mine, my father's still in hospital but doing much better. No infection (it was aspiration pneumonia) so hopefully he'll be able to go home soon.

For me, the actual vacation part of the vacation took place between Sunday morning and Monday afternoon. But it was a good day. Walked all over Manhattan. Got to check out the swanky WFM up at Columbus Circle. Had an awesome breakfast at Le Pain Quotidien, which is apparently a Belgium-based chain. By decor perhaps a bit fussy and over-determined. But the bread kicked mucho ass. Nice big basket o' good bread, with some wonderful apricot jam and a hazelnut spread that could bring tears to yr eyes. Big bowl o' coffee. Good way to start the morning.

The non-food highlight of the weekend was Sunday's trip to the Met. We saw the Chanel exhibition. Very interesting and reminded me of stuff from the biography of Chanel I read a few years ago. Sarah will no doubt comment more expertly on this show. Also checked out an exhibit of photography by Roger Fenton, an early British photographer. Included pics taken during the Crimean War, in Moscow during the 1850s, a few shots of Queen Victoria's children, many many landscapes and church ruins. A bit too many of those. After the 10th or 11th scenic Welsh waterfall it go to be a bit much. And, of course, the main event, the big big Max Ernst show. Breathtaking. I was joking that the Ernst documentary we watched made it sound like pretty much all innovations in 20th century art (except cubism) derived from Ernst. But after going thru the show, it's clear that he was enormously influential in a lot of different ways. Also fun, my friend Lisa was able to join us for the Ernst part of the afternoon. We go back, jeez, almost 20 years now to when we were both working at NYU. So it's been a couple of years since I've seen her and it was nice to get together and finally introduce her to Sarah. So yeah... one good day. Better than the last trip.

So. yeah, I'm gonna need a vacation to recover from my vacation. Which I won't get. Altho at least there's the weekend coming up. And loteria on Monday nite.
Anyway, I wanted to give proper mention to perhaps the culinary high point of the trip, the fantastico Shake Shack. Without a doubt, the best damn burger I've had in years. Now, I'm not necessarily the ultimate judge, since I don't usually get burgers out, cos they usually suck. But I do (as previously noted in this blog) like to stop by Cook-Out in Durham every now and again. Those are pretty damn good burgers and don't come anywhere close to the Shake Shack. Truly meat greatness indeed.

Perhaps some day we'll be able to have a visit to N Island (and I'll be explaining that reference when I get around to posting photos) that doesn't involve some kind of medical upheaval. But not this time alas. Back at Xmas, Sarah and I both got probably as sick as we've been in years. This time my Dad's landed in the hospital. Things seem to be stabilizing so we're trying to proceed with the visit in between trips down there.
Oh and did I mention that it's hotter than a mother...
(hey, he said half a word)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 19 jun 05) ::

Forced March :: Madagascar
Putumayo Presents: Mali :: various
Solo in Rio 1959 :: Luiz Bonfa
Uprooting :: Warsaw Village Band
La Kahena :: Cheb i Sabbah
Rough Guide to Boogaloo :: various
Rough Guide to the Music of Sudan :: various
Arroz con Mango :: Tiempo Libre
Brother Moses Smote the Water :: Klezmatics
El Ave de mi Sonar :: los Camperos de Valles

I'm pretty sure none of the regulars here at the Lounge are from the relevant states, but just in case anyone's dropping by and hasn't already seen this on boing boing or elsewhere, here's a link to the EFF info about broadcast flag possibly sneaking thru under cover of darkness this week. Hands off my media, ya bastids...

Succeeded in getting phase one of the tomato enclosure put together tonight. I'm pretty sure it will require several more stakes as the plants get bigger. And obviously more rope or string. But this should hold 'em for at least a little while.
Did not succeed in two other of today's projects:(1) finding a gift for my Dad; or (2) not being driven to distraction by work. On the upside, while there's always tomorrow for shopping, there's also only tomorrow and the day after for working. And then it's 8 blissful days of no working. (and not a moment too soon)

On the no fun side: having to work today. Six hours. Feh! Also lacking in fun: that queasy feeling when I realize that a piece of paper with some important (altho not irreplacable) information is, at that very moment, finishing up the spin cycle in the pocket of today's jeans. Oooh, I hate when that happens. More fun, thankfully, to be had from the successful completion of the melon sorbet project. Yummy. And tastes much better if you don't let the canteloupe mixture start to spoil in the fridge before running it thru the ice cream freezer. I added some mint simple syrup and a squeeze or two of lime juice but they mostly backgrounded the melon flavor. Well, the mint may linger just a bit in the mouth. All in all, though, I'm pleased with it as a first effort. And pretty simple really, as long as I remember to keep the chilling sleeve in the freezer at all times. Probably I could've done straight fruit puree without even the syrup and that would've just been: cut up fruit, run thru food processor, chill in fridge, use ice cream freezer. Or under 1 hour start to finish. Next up: gelato di riso (which will certainly be way more time consuming). Then maybe try to figure out a sorbet version of the Loco Pops pineapple/chile.

I suppose (esp. since someone from the band or at least their website was nice enough to drop by a while ago) I oughta mention that I wrote up my brief review of die Warzau's Convenience and dropped it off at the station last weekend. It should be happily residing on the XDU playlist at this moment. One of the reasons I don't post my XDU reviews here is that they're not reviews in the consumer-driven sense that a public review is. They're driven solely by the functional needs of DJs trying to decide whether to play a specific CD and/or what song to play off any particular CD. As such they tend to ignore questions like "should I buy this?" and so on. So I don't know that I have all that much to add to some of the other reviews I've seen online.
If not all over the map, die Warzau do cover a lot of stylistic territory. Don't know if that makes for a wholly unified listening experience as a CD. Don't know if that even matters any more. For me, I almost never listen to entire CDs. I'm either playing/hearing 1 song at a time at the station or listening to radio, webstreams, other mixes or just iTunes on shuffle mode. No doubt making me part of the end-product of the short attention spanning of cultcha. whatever.
As usual, I digress. Convenience then... Good stuff. Very diverse, like I said, which may not sit to well with hardcore rivethead types. I picked up splashes of drill & bass, triphop, electroclash, even some grungesque guitars. I was surprised that none of the reviews I saw mentioned that "Superbuick" is really a way better classic Foetus track than anything ole JGT has done lately (don't get me wrong, I like ole JGT but he's also moved his sound around a bit). And "Gone Chemical" is a good answer to the question: what do you get if you cross Gravity Kills with Pet Shop Boys? (I hope I'm remembering the right songs there. I crashed out after dinner and now I'm all groggy and too lazy to go doublecheck)
I'd also like to offer much praise to dW's label Pulseblack for their refreshingly enlightened 21st century approach to digital ownership.

I was gonna link to the gallery o' casino carpeting that !!swanhunter sent me the other day. But the site got boing boinged into the ground today. So during the meanwhilst, here's some interesting stuff (also from la boing) about copyright/trademark and kid's party cakes. Sarah, for obvious reasons, knows way more about this stuff than I do and I think she often gets the same kinda response that showed up on boing boing. It's probably true of many things but people seem very attached and militant about things they think they know (but which aren't actually true). Anyway, now that I'm thinking about it, I realize that I've actually participated in some cake related infringement. It was a few years ago when Sarah and I went to... somewhere... Costco maybe (?) and got a copy of the Ayn Rand postage stamp decorated onto a cake for our friend Ray. So I guess everyone who ate that cake owes the USPS or Rand's estate or both a coupla cents or something...

Back Monday, Sarah and I attended one of the cooking classes at Southern Season in Chapel Hill. I didn't really know what to expect. I wasn't really thinking it was going to be a hands-on class but I wasn't 100% sure. But, in fact, it was much like having a TV cooking show created live before your eyes. Except without all the stopping and starting for the cameras that I'm sure happens on actual TV cooking shows. Lots of fun and we had a total blast. It was a Southwest menu themed class, which is one of my fave cuisines. Having watched more than my fair share of Rick Bayless and Diana Kennedy on TV, there wasn't a ton of stuff that was new to me. But there were several good tips and tidbits, and (yes) things that I didn't know. And it was fun. And interesting to see it all being done right there. All the food from the recipes was good (yes, they feed you along with giving a cooking class -- what's not to love?) and a couple of the recipes I'm definitely looking forward to trying out. One for a very simple salad mixing melon, pineapple, cucumber and jicama that's served with accompanying lime wedge to squeeze over top and salt and ancho chili powder to sprinkle. Supertasty and refreshing. My other fave recipe was for a cajeta and blueberry bread pudding. Which included tips on how to make your own cajeta. Oh so yum. That's a must for the next big sugar splurge. Anyway, there are many different instructors teaching the classes at Southern Season but I definitely want to put in a plug here for Sheri Castle, who taught the class on Monday. If you're a foodie, it's definitely worth seeking out one of her classes. Mucho recommended.

Over the weekend we watched Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Wonderful, of course. Very intense -- probably more violent than any of his movies, altho maybe not as graphic as Princess Mononoke. If you're familiar with Miyazaki, it's similar to Laputa except it's got more of the girl's adventure story feel of Spirited Away (or even Kiki's Delivery Service altho it's much darker). I was struck by the parallels and similarities to Princess Mononoke (the "environmental" themes in particular) Sarah even noticed some visuals that seemed to anticipate the later Mononoke. I don't remember many mentions of Nausicaa in the Mononoke reviews, but that might be just me -- I wasn't as familiar with Miyazaki then as I am now. Also, at that time Nausicaa was essentially unavailable to US audiences so that's maybe another reason why it wasn't cited in those reviews. It's also interesting to see just how much better, and more detailed the animation has gotten from Nausicaa (which is plenty amazing) to the more recent films like Mononoke or Spirited Away. Even though the animation's not quite as good maybe, I think I enjoyed Nausicaa a bit more than Mononoke, altho I'm not sure I could quite say why. Spirited Away is still my favorite, altho I have a special fondness for Kiki's even though it's clearly not in the same class as his best work. Still haven't seen Porco Rosso which also seems slight but, hey, pigs in biplanes... what could be bad?
(aside: I've been doing my best to avoid all reviews of Howl's Moving Castle which has already opened in NYC and other major urban centers. with any luck it will be playing in the Triangle before too much longer)

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 12 jun 05) ::

Uprooting :: Warsaw Village Band
Rough Guide to the Music of Sudan :: various
La Kahena :: Cheb i Sabbah
Solo in Rio 1959 :: Luiz Bonfa
Bucovina Club :: various
Arroz con Mango :: Tiempo Libre
13 :: Javier Garcia
New Zealand in Dub :: various
Mzansi Music: Young Urban South Africa :: various
El Ave de mi Sonar :: los Camperos de Valles

First round out with the latest kitchen toy tonight -- tried to make some melon sorbet w/o success. Of course I didn't bother to RTFM until I'd already started. At which point I realized that the freezing container hadn't been frozen enough. So stop the whole thing, container back into freezer and mixture back into fridge and try again tomorrow night.

Last night, I watched Animal Crackers -- classic Marx Brothers. I'd actually forgotten that I'd seen this one. Because it was unavailable for many years, I've only seen it a few times, unlike their others which I've seen more times than I can count. Picked up on a couple of things this time that I hadn't before: Groucho's dialogue is much racier than in some of the later movies; when the art dealer (formerly Abie the fish man) and Chico are going at it, he responds to Chico's taunting by asking him "when did you get to be Italian" which is clearly a reference to them both actually being eastern European Jews (and in fact their accents get more heavily yiddische as the scene progresses); scene where Groucho starts parodying Eugene O'Neill, walking towards camera and monologuing, breaking the 4th wall.
This morning (and I mean early this morning) we went out to PBH for some lure-chasing. Which is basically dogs chasing a motorized racoon tail around a huge wire course. Think greyhound racing (familiar from Bugs Bunny cartoons, of course) and you're not far off. Lisa B was there with one of her dogs, Lucy. And a range of other dogs from big shepherd-y, retriever-y type dogs to whippets to basenjis to dachshunds. Thirteen was obviously there with spectator status but Jane Lane did a couple of runs. She was super into it and really good -- stayed after the lure the whole way around, didn't go running off into the woods and came over to Sarah pretty much as soon as she'd finished running the course. You wouldn't think (or at least I wouldn't) that standing around watching dogs would be tiring, even if it did involve waking up before 7 on a Saturday. But we were both wiped out by the time we got home and spent the afternoon crashing and being generally out of it. On the other hand, that's what weekends are for

Yikes! Now I've been Blogwatched. Surely this is one of the signs of the end times... And it's not just me. They also paid a return visit to friend of this website Ms. Pants for her blueberry report. Does this mean we're the cool kids for this week? I'm sticking with it's the end times...

Just discovered by me today (altho they've been open since last weekend) -- Loco Pops Gourmet Popsicles. In Durham on Hillsborough Rd (not that far from Ninth St). They're bringing the paletas experience to the Triangle. According to the flyer, flavors include Mango with Chili, Tamarind, Cucumber with Chili, Ginger Canteloupe, Chocolate with Rosemary, Mexican Caramel (I guess that would be cajeta), Rice Pudding. I remember that several of these were available this afternoon. I can't recall exactly but I think there were around 10 each of the fruit varieties and the cream varieties. Popsicles come in 3 sizes: small, medium and large. Sarah had the Pineapple/Mint. It was the only sugar-free flavor on offer. I had a taste, It was really good. Very fresh tasting. Very minty. I had the Chocolate w/ Chili. Amazing! I overheard the folks behind the counter saying that they're using only 1 variety of chili in the fruit/chili varieties but 3 in the chocolate/chili. I don't know that I'd have spontaneously guessed that. But it is a complex flavor. Reminds me of the Red Fire chocolate from Vosges, which is pretty good company to be in. One consumer advisory: if you're buying the chocolate/chili popsicle, I'd recommend eating it right there at the shop as it had started melting quite a bit by the time I got it home. The Pineapple/Mint pop held up much better and had barely melted at all.
I don't know how well Loco Pops will do once the cool weather returns. But I plan to visit often this summer.

Well, last night's show was easily 20% more shambolic than usual. I actually found myself at the end of the first set with 20 seconds left in the song and nothing cued up. Had to grab a playlist CD I'd reviewed and put it into the player and cue it up while I was talking. The night got better from there it's true, altho I felt like I was having segue/dead air problems all the way through. And the last set I did was way too same-y sounding. Even though it was cutting from RPM to instrumental rock to 20th century classical, it was all kinda quiet, austere stuff (Autechre, Kev Hopper, Carl Ruggles, Jaga Jazzist, etc). But I did have fun with the Eddie Izzard mega-set of cutting between bits of his "Stonehenge" routine and stuff generally louder and rockier than I usually play (inc. Didjits and Judas Priest).
And can I just so how cool it is that Cook Out is still open after midnight when I'm driving home? Sure sure I know that some fries and chicken strips are probably not what I need to be consuming at 12.30 in the AM. But I never did eat any dinner last night. As a bonus, while waiting in line you get to look at their very cool neon sign, complete with giant flaming spatula.
Came home and decompressed: ate my Cook Out meal and watched Scotland and Belarus utterly fail to score any goal at all in World Cup 2006 qualifying. Still early rounds so no one's eliminated but on the other hand, the 1 point for tying is hardly going to improve Scotland's chances of advancing. I need to find a good World Cup or FIFA-related site so I can start figuring out where they are in the process.

So work threw us a free lunch today. 'Cue from Don Murray's in Raleigh. Damn that was some good pig. But double-damn, I'm not used to eating so much at lunch. Now it's 7+ hours later and I'm just starting to feel not stuffed. Which is good cos I gotta go make some radio magic happen. Or sumthin'...
I'll also be on the air this Friday from 6-8pm EDT for the special disco-dance party show (or whatever the hell it's called)(note: just checked and apparently it's Funk Disco Dance Friday). Then you can expect lotsa world dance stuff. And old techno and new beat. Tonight? Not the slightest idea.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 05 jun 05) ::

Bucovina Club :: various
Uprooting :: Warsaw Village Band
New Zealand in Dub :: various
13 :: Javier Garcia
Solo in Rio 1959 :: Luiz Bonfa
Mzansi Music: Young Urban South Africa :: various
Love's a Real Thing: Funky, Fuzzy Sounds of West Africa :: various
La Kahena :: Cheb i Sabbeh
El Ave de mi Sonar :: los Camperos de Valles
Rough Guide to Boogaloo :: various

Watched the Incredibles tonight. (yes, finally, at this late date... what can i say? Last year was not good for dragging our carcasses to actual movie theaters). My absolute favorite scenes were probably Edna Mode's dissection of the cape problem and Frozone's quest for his costume. Oh, and loved the Bond music they were using for scenes on Syndrome's island lair. One thing that occured to me, tho -- you can tell it's a Pixar movie and not Disney cos the mom's not dead. Was not, I have to say, all that impressed by the trailer for Cars (Pixar does Nascar). I found the buck-toothed truck completely annoying. Maybe that's just me... but no, I don't think so.

Today was the first day when it's felt really hot. Like stupid hot. Holy jumpin jeebus it's hot. Etc. And the sick thing is it wasn't all that hot. I think the high was 89. It'll be getting way hotter than that. Well, it rarely breaks 100 but mid-90s isn't unusual at all as we really get going on summer. Got some yardwork done early this morning, which included continued war on the Evil Bamboo Forest. Not as satisfying as round 1, as the dent I made today is much less visible to the casual observer. After a bit of restful collapsing and a shower or two, I went off and shopped. Few things more delightful on a hot afternoon than driving around with the AC on to spend money at some fine retail establishments.
Well, here's one of those things which are more delightful. Dogfish Head is probably my absolute favorite microbrewery. I know, clicking on a website is hardly the same as enjoying a tasty beverage, but the internets (in general) and this site (in particular) have not really cracked the problem of delivery-to-your-mouth of tasty beverages thru digital means.

Good day. Long day. Went to Farmer's Market this morning with Xta. w00t! Mowed and stuff in the afternoon (note to self: that is stupid; it's staying light until after 8 so maybe you should trying mowing later in the day when it's not so frikkin hot). Went out to dinner at the Barbecue Joint, which we hit just at the end of a rush so it took way too long for the food to arrive. But the pork, as always, was magnificent.

And, hey, here's some good news... looks like the Starlite might be re-opening soon. w00t (again)!!

Was watching an episode of Good Eats last night where Alton showed how to make a barbecue smoker out of two large clay planting pots, an electric hot plate and the grate from a Weber grill. While complicated and tricksy, as much of his stuff is, this one actually looked do-able. And with a reported price tag (equipment only) under $50, perhaps even worth the effort. Except of course the meat's gotta smoke for 10-12 hours. Anyway, June will be way too busy for me to have a crack at that project, but maybe later in the summer.

And there's also these helpful backyard grilling tips from the Onion.

Infernokrusher!
Infernokrusher!
Infernokrusher!
Infernokrusher!

(just go)

(oh yeah, and my pick for proto-Infernokrusher anthem is "Motorslug" by Wiseblood)

Here's my fave bit of inadvertant pop cultcha cross-referencing from at least this week (or possibly evah!)... I overheard a conversation in the breakroom at work about the latest Star Wars movie. The jist seemed to be that it was obvious what was going to happen at the end, particularly that Natalie Portman's character was not going to die until the end because she still had to give birth to Luke and Laura. Or perhaps they meant Luke Vibert and Laura Petrie...

Pointless meme fun (found via scrubbles). Is there any other kind? Isn't "pointless" in fact redundant in that sentence? Anyway, what's the first song for each letter of the alphabet in your computer's music playlist?

"64 aka Go" :: Lemon Jelly
"A Day in the Life" :: Handsome Boy Modeling School
"Baby Dee" :: Konk
"Cada Hombre" :: Lo Jo
"Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy" :: the Soulful Strings
"East Coast West Coast" :: Lil Pocketknife
"Fermium" :: Autechre
"Galang-al (Trou Macacq)" :: Jeff Warren
"Hand's Fall Backwards" :: Click Click
"I Slayed the Rye" :: Warsaw Village Band
"Ja Fun Me Dub" :: King Sunny Adé
"Kaar Deerge" :: Sainkho Namtchylak
"L-Virata" :: Hexstatic
"Ma Tendre Amie" :: Yeye
"Nae Regrets" :: Martyn Bennett
"Oh l'Amour" :: Erasure
"Paid in Full" :: Eric B & Rakim
"Qual" :: X Mal Deutschland
"Radio Bostich" :: Voyou
"Saharony Ellil" :: Ragheb Alama
"Ta Travudia" :: Rootsman
"Ug" :: Mr. Scruff
"Venus as a Boy" :: Mike Flowers Pops
"Waduh" :: Sabah Habas Mustapha
"Ya Rabbi Bil Mustapha" :: Stephen Kent
"Zinavs" :: TBA