So anyway...
Before I completely forget, let me finish up the tales o' last weekends fun. Which all ended up at the wedding of Lisa and Jason. So fabulous. They had it out at the Umstead in Cary. Which is super-swank. I mean, Vegas levels of swank. We decided to stay out there Sunday night so we could celebrate and not have to deal w/ driving home or getting up early the next morning (I took Monday off work too). We checked in around 3, lay around marveling at the room them got dressed and went downstairs. Hung out at the bar w/ S & D then we all went down to the wedding, which was outside on the lawn overlooking the lake. Admired the large planters of fresh herbs. Tried not to cry when Lisa walked in. Wished we'd remembered to swipe some tissues from the hotel room. After the ceremony the photographer had all the guests gather behind Lisa and Jason for a shot taken from the terrace overlooking the lawn. Then they went off to take pics and we all went off for hors d'ouevres and drinks and whatnot. Assorted cheeses, fun little amuses, Bass Ale. Then on to dinner. Meal was great. Cake was great. People were great. Music was great. There was even that rarest of sights -- me dancing. After the reception (last song: "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong), we all hung out on the terrace next to a big ole gas fireplace. The only down side was that Sarah forgot to call the pet sitter so she had to run home towards the end of the reception and feed Jane and let her out. The craziest thing was when we all got out on the terrace there was this guy hanging out there. Not part of the wedding, just a guest at the hotel. And he was hugely, prodigiously drunk. I think he'd been at the bar drinkinng jack & cokes for about as long as we'd all been at the wedding and reception (about 5+ hours or so). Drunk as a lord. And he never left. He just sorta became part of the event. Sorta like dinner and a floorshow.
Good times, indeed.
Here's some pictures.

Congratulations again, Lisa and Jason!!!

Word of a new Bourdain web series hit the internets earlier this week, to much haterade sipping. As an aside, have you noticed that there's nothing more irritating than knee-jerk hipster disdain? Srsly. Someone please tell these people that the phrase "jump the shark" has performed the little seen self-referential self-sharkjump. Of course, all that hating was based on a few screencaps. Which I thought looked pretty awesome. I mean, c'mon. Bourdain dressed as Frankenstein's monster? Cartoon Zamir? Definite Venture Bros meets Brak Show vibe? What's not to love? But before I could get a post up about that, an actual preview clip showed up. So let's just roll with that.

When we left our story, it was Saturday afternoon. After the chili potluck we headed home to chill for an hour or so and then headed out to Cary for Lisa and Jason's "we don't need no stinkin' rehearsal dinner." (OK, that's maybe not exactly what they called it... but it was close). Anyway, it was in a shelter bldg @ Umstead Park. Which I heard at some point that night, had been constructed by the WPA. It did have that 1930s rustic style about it. And that would explain why there were all these signs about no candles, no balloons, no piñatas.
So... Nice space. Nice park (I'd never been before). Catering by Q Shack (brisket, pork, chicken and ribs... yum!). Hanging out with Xta, Mary, Steph, Stephanie, S & D, Lisa's family, Jason's family. Oh yeah, and smores prepped in the fireplace. How can you tell when your marshmallow is toasted enough? When it's en fuego.. Big ups to Xta for the suggestion to sub out the choco bar for Nutella in the smores construction phase.
FABulous.
And then we came home and started watching season 5 of Project Runway on DVD.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 25 oct 09)

Adventures in Paradise :: Waitiki 7
Television :: Baaba Maal
11:11 :: Rodrigo y Gabriela
Imidiwan : Companions :: Tinariwen
Planet Paprika :: Shantel
the Sound of Wonder! :: various
la Salida :: Dislocados
Certa Manhã Acordei de Sonhos Intranqüilos :: Otto
rivermudtwilight :: les Triaboliques
Ya Foy! :: Sarazino

this week's video feature: les Triaboliques

Crazy busy and fabulous weekend. Busy parts included making bacon cornbread on Friday night. Sadly, I pulled it out of the oven too soon. I mean, I know better. I was talking about just this a few weeks ago. How long do you bake something? You bake it until it's done. But I wanted it to be done so I pulled it out. It looked okay that night but by the morning it had sunk in the middle and when I cut it open it was way underbaked. So that took us to busy part no. 2 and coming up with another dish to bring to a potluck on Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, Sarah had a recipe for potato skins in mind so we were able to get that pulled together. Busy part no. 3 actually came before that, on Saturday morning when we had to drive a couple of big planters out to the Umstead Hotel in Cary (more on that later).
But enough of that jive. On to fun time! Fun thing the first: chili potluck hosted by Brooks Ann and Charles. Got to hang out with some fun people, eat some good food, see their insanely cute house in Hillsborough, which they've been renovating. So many awesome details. I particularly love this thing they've done on the ceilings, where they've used leftover tin roofing on the inside, just with some shellac to keep any rust from falling off. I'm not explaining that well, but trust me, it's an awesome look for a vaulted ceiling.
Fun things the second and third will be discussed at length in the next post.

I was sorting thru some junkmail earlier and I found an ad for this commemorative item. No, I'm not going to describe it. Words fail me. And I think you really should experience the full awesomeness of it without knowing first. Some things are better as surprises. But if you're just violently opposed to blind links (don't worry, it's SFW and I'm not Rickrolling you), well, you can get a hint from the tag.

Unrelated, but hilarious (via boing²): helpful chart for writers. Ancient alien pyramid scheme!

Quote of the day, from Marc Lynch (via Sullivan):

Thanks, Dick Cheney - whenever I fret about Obama, you're there to buck me up and remind me of the alternative.

Busy week so I haven't been paying that much attention to the news. But sometimes I feel like it doesn't matter cos all that's changed when I check again after any time away is that people have gotten even stupider and/or more insane. As confirmation, I offer the following Scalzi anecdote. I'm almost stunned and definitely amused and disturbed that the gasbag class has apparently been bloviating about this ALL DAMN WEEK.

Well, it's not like anything important is going on in the world...

Went to the state fair yesterday. It was frikkin' mobbed. Seriously, we've been pretty much every year this century, I think and I don't remember it ever being more crowded. I'm sure that had a lot to do with it being warm and sunny after the craptacular cold and cloudy first few days. Well, that's craptacular for the mass mind. I actually prefer the fair when it's a bit cooler. Altho maybe that's just cos it holds the crowds down. Unlike some years, I didn't really plan things out and figure out where we wanted to go. Which wouldn't have been a problem if it hadn't been so frikkin' mobbed. We did stumble onto the lime fizz stand (and it was excellent). Found the deep fried corn stand but were disappointed to discover that it was a whole ear battered and deep fried. I know it's heresy but I think there are some things that are just too big to deep fry. My only regret is that we didn't find the stand selling chicken fried bacon so I cannot resolve the batter coated v. not batter coated controversy. Alas. Still, a fine afternoon. Some new things I noticed this year: big pen o' baby chickens and ducks in the main display hall; woman demonstrating skiff building in the Village of Yesteryear; history of NC State Fair display, including ads recruiting "husky young Americans" to join the tank corps in WWI (did you know that the fairgrounds were the site of Ft. Polk, a tank training ground?) and fight "the Boche"; mad skillz of the folks at the ribbon fry stand, who managed to invert an entire fryer basket of fried potato chips onto a paper plate, time and time again.

If I can get all vague and cryptic for a bit, a couple weeks ago I kinda lost it at some folks because this process I was involved in had jumped ahead from step 2 to step 8 without bothering to verify the all-important step 4 ("end user approval"). I was told at the time that there was nothing to worry about. The clear implication being that end user approval was obviously a mere formality so why didn't I please shut up with my concerns about time & money wasted on this project. I'm sure you can guess (from the fact that I'm writing this) that "formality" was anything but and the whole project is on the verge of being scrapped because the target destination doesn't want it anymore. So, hooray and whoop-de-crap, I was right. Cold comfort, that. Esp. because I have little expectation that anyone who matters will take the correct lesson from this. Namely that there's some value in nailing down step 4 before sinking a lot of resources into steps 5 thru 8.

It is seriously beyond imagining that anyone would take this as illustrating that maybe they should listen to me cos I might know what the fuck I'm talking about. Also.

Instead, please enjoy this -- a proper food fight, indeed. (via Eat Me Daily)

Super Baozi vs Sushi man from sun haipeng on Vimeo.

The other day I was trying to track down a Foetus video on YouTube (which I found, but that's not important right now) and I stumbled onto the following. Which is Big Black live at CBGB in 1986. First time I've ever found video online of a show I was actually at. Subsequent searching has also turned up Live Skull from the same night. Not posted, as far as I can tell, is the very long, very lame joke that Dave Riley told to kill time while Peter Prescott was setting up his drumkit (he was filling in for Roland after the drum machine died an untimely death). So, yeah, holy blast from the past...
Got me thinking about shows I've been to that it'd be fun to see clips of. Off the top of my head, I'd say Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan @ Central Park, Pogues @ the Ritz, Cibo Matto @ Cat's Cradle, U2 @ JB Scott's, Three Johns @ the World (or whatever the hell they were calling it at that time), Minutemen @ Peppermint Lounge.

So what did I learn this morning? That when I wake up late, I can actually get a glass of orange juice, let the dog out, let the dog in, shower, brush my teeth, get dressed and get in the car in 15 minutes. Honestly, I didn't really needed to learn this. But you gotta work with what you got...

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 25 oct 09)

Adventures in Paradise :: Waitiki 7
Television :: Baaba Maal
11:11 :: Rodrigo y Gabriela
Imidiwan : Companions :: Tinariwen
Planet Paprika :: Shantel
the Sound of Wonder! :: various
la Salida :: Dislocados
Certa Manhã Acordei de Sonhos Intranqüilos :: Otto
rivermudtwilight :: les Triaboliques
Ya Foy! :: Sarazino

this week's video feature: les Triaboliques

Seems to be some questions about one of the new fried items at the NC State Fair (starts tomorrow! w00t!!). Deep Fried, the official blog says that chicken-fried bacon is battered and then deep fried. But Andrea Weigl (N&O) says that the chicken-fried bacon is just deep fried, with no batter involved. Personally, I don't see how you can call something chicken-fried if there's no batter. Further investigation will take place next Wednesday.

William Rhoden had a sports op-ed in today's NYTimes that was the distilled essence of why I hate the Yankees. (I'd link to it but the NYTimes link generator seems to be broken tonight). Basically he's bloviating about how beisbol needs to have a Dodgers v. Yankees World Series. Because that will provide closure on the steroids era. Or something something. What-fucking-ever. Clearly, one thing we will NEVER have closure on is sports guys gassing on about how beisbol needs to be redeemed from or come to terms with or transcend or have a picnic lunch with the steroids issue. I'd hoped that the rapturous reception that Manny Ramirez received when he came back to the Dodgers earlier this year would have driven a stake thru all that. If there was ever a clearer and more concise illustration of that fact that, look, fans don't really much care if you're juicing, they care if you're winning... well, I'm not sure what else you want. But, no, there's a never-ending industry in blowhard holier-than-thou self-righteousness. And it's amazing how often the answer to all life's (or baseball's) problems seems to be for the Yankees to win. I understand why that's true if you live in NYC. If you live in LA (or Chicago or Pittsburgh), maybe not so much. Of course, the Rhodens (or Lupicas or Kornheisers or... well, you get the idea) of the world seem to miss the fact that they're writing from a position of parochial self-interest. It's always objectively True that the Yankees need to win. Like there's some kind of frickity-frackin' platonic ideal of baseball that's not being achieved if you have Phillies v. Rays in the World Series. So of course I'm holding out for Rockies v. Angels, just cos it's the matchup that will most pissoff the East Coast bias of the major sports media types.

Looking up some question about Louis Armstrong this afternoon and I found this amazing blog, the Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong. The author has a book on Armstrong's later years coming out next spring and has been working on the blog since 2007. I've only just started working my way thru the archives. Seriously interesting stuff. One of the first posts I read was about Armstrong's version of "Cuban Pete." Which I only knew as a Desi Arnaz song from the 50s. Had no idea it was old enough to have been recorded back in the 30s. Plus as a coming-in-late bonus, the author's complaint that the song was not available on iTunes turns out to no longer be the case.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 4 oct 09)

the Sound of Wonder! :: various
Siamese Soul: Thai Pop Spectacular, vol. 2 :: various
Rocksteady: the Roots of Reggae :: various
Certa Manhã Acordei de Sonhos Intranqüilos :: Otto
la Salidas :: Dislocados
Haih... ou Amortecedor... :: Os Mutantes
Eternal :: Huun Huur Tu and Carmen Rizzo
Ya Foy! :: Sarazino
Guasábara :: José Lugo Orchestra
Plateau :: Soname

this week's video feature: Os Mutantes

I'm know y'all are way too practiced in the ways of the internets for this to be news but it was a scam variant that I'd never seen before. Got an email today claiming to be from UPS saying that a package I'd sent back in June had been undeliverable and I needed to download the attached claim form. No problemo, cheese. Well, except for the fact that I never sent any packages via UPS. Also, the "claim form" was a zip file. Oh, yeah, and the address I got sent to was one that I never use for sending mail or as registration/ID for web bizness.

Another bit o' video wonderulness. Which you've also probably seen. But it's super awesome and merits the linkage. Thanks to Ms. Pants for sharing it on Facebook.

Perhaps you've seen this already. It has the feel o' something that's been all around the internets and back again twice. But I'd not seen it until this weekend when my friend Pru sent me the link.
I have an entirely new level of admiration for the Welsh...

Sights and sounds from a Durham Saturday morning.
Funniest thing I heard at the farmers' market: a harried dad asking a vendor if they'd seen his other daughter. Vendors responded that 1 was standing next to the harried dad and the other was on his shoulders.
Best signage at the farmers' market: collared greens
What I bought: focaccia, mini apple pie, guanciale & green tomato stromboli, cupcakes, fresh figs, baby eggplant, cherry tomatoes, beets
Most self-referential vanity plate evah: MISPELED
also seen on the way home: a pond fish delivery truck. I don't know about you, but I'd never thought about how pond fish got to the store. Apparently, they arrive in special tank trucks, with different tanks for each kind of fish.

I've found that I really need to step back from reading as much political stuff. So I'm feeling less informed but much less angry. Which oddly seems the exact opposite of the freaked-out wingnuts. It seems like the less they know, they angrier they get. Me? I've found that a little "ignorance is bliss" goes a long, long way. But I do dip my brain back into the swamps every now and again. And I gotta say I'm finding the level of glee at Chicago not getting the Olympics quite hilarious. I guess it's all rah-rah USA #1 until your guy ain't President. Look, I'm not saying I begrudge them hating the President. I've spent most of my adult life hating whoever was President. It's the hypocrisy that really grates. All these people that have been telling me how "it's the office, not the man."

blah blah blah

I know, I know... like we didn't all learn this back when Bill Clinton was President.

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 27 sept 09)

Rocksteady: the Roots of Reggae :: various
Ya Foy! :: Sarazino
Haih... ou Amortecedor... :: Os Mutantes
Blow Up :: Bomba Estereo
Deliverance :: A Hawk and a Hacksaw
Eternal :: Huun Huur Tu and Carmen Rizzo
Blodeugerdd: Song of the Flowers :: various
Plateau :: Soname
Depedro :: Depedro
Eclipse :: Lura

this week's video feature: Huun Huur Tu (no vids from the Carmen Rizzo project but here's a nice clip of them playing in a more trad style)