House of Dioxin

tomorrow's nothing but ice cream on wheels

2010-03-10T04:54:38Z

So I gotta say that I'm generally a pretty unapologetic food geek. But there are definitely times when I understand why some people hate foodies so much. Today's example is this quote I saw on Chowhound, from a thread discussing a new Indian restaurant opening in Chapel Hill: "why does every place have to make Sag Paneer? That's just so tiresome, I don't even make it at home anymore I'm so sick of it."
Oh where to begin. First off, is this not like complaining about Italian restaurants serving fettucine carbonara or sushi places serving hamachi? Why, yes, I think it is. Also, how in the hell do people get so spoiled and self-involved that they think the entire frakkin' universe is supposed to kowtow to their tastes. Everyone is different. And, hey, that's why there's lots of CHOICES on the menu. If you don't want to order saag paneer then how about not ordering it. Because the restaurant is there to make money by selling things that people want to buy not to satisfy someone's precious ideas of what is or isn't "tiresome."

There, I feel much better now.

Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.

anyone who doesn't take a nap should be sent to jail

2010-03-09T01:15:03Z

You know what I hate? Well, this sinus infection or whatever that's had me alternately congested or runny-nosed since Saturday. Not to get all cliché here but I'm really sick and tired of being sick and tired.
Also highly hate-able, when I make a comment on a friend's update on Facebook and then someone else rolls in and says something dickish. I mean, one wants to respond, right? But it's someone else's wall. And I think that's just really piss poor etiquette. It's like going over someone's house and then getting into a fight with one of the other guests.

Something I don't in any way hate. This insanely cool musical number from the 1977 Bollywood movie Dream Girl. Cory Doctorow linked this over at boing² last week but somehow I misread his description and thought it had been shot in Disneyland. I looked again today and realized, no, it's Disney World. In 1977, which was the same year that I was there with my family. Unlike the kids in the movie, my brother and I were semi-jaded teens so were more into the Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain type rides. I regret not having gone on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and I think the Nemo submarine ride was closed. Otherwise I just didn't go on it for some reason. Maybe the line was too long. I can't remember (it was a long time ago). I also remember the Enchanted Tiki Room being lots o' fun. That was probably my first exposure to tiki/exotica culture, even if in a Disneyified stylee.

a bad experience with a potato gun

2010-03-06T16:20:45Z

Dammit, I think I'm coming down with a cold. I don't have time to be sick. There's too much shit to get done.
Anyway, while I'm trying to figure out if/what I might have, here's an interesting article from Slate (and, yes, every time I've pretty much given up on Slate as nothing but a bunch of professional contrarians, they manage to come up with something like this) about signs and wayfinding. Actually it's part of a whole series, all of which have been well worth reading. I love stuff like this that gives me the chance to learn about something that, altho I encounter it all the time, I've never really had much occasion to think about before.

Here's a squirrel that's really into Shake Shack, which should cute up your Saturday enough.

Also, this

but we don't want to listen to the music

2010-03-05T04:32:57Z

Sometimes I feel like the reason I got into DJing at XDU was to gain one more measure of control of the audio environment. I know that in today's webstreaming, iPod world, the notion of radio as a public audio space can seem a bit quaint. But I was reminded today that, quaint thought it may be, it's still a part of life. Had a dose of 80s classics over breakfast. Determined that Hall & Oates are less annoying than "Sussudio" and that it's a toss-up between "Paradise City" and "Who Can It Be Now?" Got another shot of dance hits at work later in the morning and determined that I don't really mind hearing "Like a Prayer" twice in one day, altho I would be just as happy not hearing it. Alas, while I was out of the room control of the audio space changed and when I returned it was no longer dance/pop hits radio but boomer classics. And I was reminded that I hate (hate!hate!!hate!!!) "American Pie." Srsly. It's on a short list of songs that seriously make me think about stabbing a pencil into my ear drum. That list would include "Stairway to Heaven" and anything from THE WALL. Probably other stuff too but those are the ones that come immediately to mind.

that's how we convince the atheists

2010-03-04T01:31:50Z

Go, D.C., go!
While this is clearly the photo of the day (week/month/year), here's some more pics from today.

all over the wrrld at the very same time

2010-03-03T02:48:46Z

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 28 feb 10)

Undersea Poem :: Undersea Poem
Concrete Jungle :: Nneka
Umberto Echo: Dub the World :: various
Rare and Glorious :: Ravi Shankar
Funky Fräuleins :: various
Retrospectiva :: Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca
Bollyhood Bass :: David Starfire
el Arte de la Elegancia :: los Fabulosos Cadillacs
Para Siempre :: Miramar
Agua del Pozo :: Alex Cuba

this week's video feature: Cultura Profética (from Umberto Echo: Dub the World)

the difference is that twice-baked potatoes are baked twice

2010-03-02T03:22:10Z

Some more examples of food-related rantage: I love this takedown of a Time article on foods that can KILL you. I know, right... go figure, a Time article was stupid. Who could've seen that coming? But the rantage is still inspired, even if there is a bit of fish-in-barrel action going on. Also fabu, Gawker smacks down a particularly stupid NYTimes article. It's nice when the internets are there to validate my disdain. I read the stupid NYTimes article (again... a stupid first-person story in the NYTimes? Surprised I am not). My reaction went from "okay, he may have a point" to "what a cheap bastard" in about nothing flat. I'll allow that having a barista ask if you want change from $10 on a $5.75 check is a bit annoying. But getting change in singles from a bartender? That's not annoying. And getting 20% added for parties over 6? I'm sorry, that makes perfect sense. Anyone who complains about that (because they always tip 15% or whatever) is clearly someone who knows nothing about the restaurant business. And also a cheap bastard.

when you move a couch, bad things happen

2010-03-01T03:20:44Z

Sad local news, as Rockwood Filling Station has closed. They had some consistency issues over their year-and-a-half run but they were my second favorite local pizza. I give a slight edge to Backdoor. But Backdoor is take-out only so RFS was tops for dine-in pizza. It's been interesting seeing the local comments since the shut down was announced. Of course, you're never gonna see total agreement about anything, esp. a restaurant that's closed. And plenty of the things people have said spoke to the kinds of reasons why people would stop going to a resto. But it's been kinda depressing to see all the haters show up to kick the place one last time after it's gone. Oh yeah, and to remind everyone who liked it that it sucked and we all suck for having liked it. Yeah, I love the internets sometimes... I think what I mainly take away from RFS closing is how razor thin the margins are in the food biz. Even a place with a regular following and good crowds can be gone just like that.

OTOH, I hear that the space will become the Fish Shack, owned and run by the guys at the Q-Shack next door. So that's a good thing.

Also, this (which is almost as insane as the Star Wars tuna advert)

you really need to tell people that before you tell them you have cows in your head

2010-02-28T02:24:07Z

This is one of my favorite things I've seen on the internets. Ever. Seems Ole Miss is looking for a new mascot to replace their current one, a cartoon Confederated colonel. So some students have worked up a campaign in support of Admiral Ackbar. I'm sure there's almost exactly zero chance of this happening. Lucas probably doesn't have enough of a sense of humor to go for it. And I doubt the U. could afford the licensing fees either.

Also, this:

at least i finally know how you truly feel about throw pillows

2010-02-27T03:47:21Z

Saw this on one of the art car mailing lists (I think). Anyway, really awesome photos of a trip from Islamabad to Paris in a 1974 VW Beetle. The photos don't seem to stop before the trip did but still, way cool. It's not, you see, just any old '74 Beetle but Foxy Shahzadi, a 1974 Volkswagen Beetle painted with unique Pakistani truck art. That's their blog about the trip, which wrapped up last November. Plus the promise that more photos are forthcoming. I've still only just gotten started reading the blog.
Here's some more info on the inspiration for their VW, Pakistani truck art
And, no, I still haven't figured out how to get photos from flickr onto the blog. There's something about MT's later iterations that flickr doesn't seem to like all that much. Sarah did show me a way to get my photos posted here but that doesn't seem to work for other people's.

in another wrrld of gin and cigarettes

2010-02-24T02:51:21Z

XDU wrrld music top 10 (week ending 21 feb 10)

Funky Fräuleins :: various
the Prester John Sessions :: Tommy T
Retrospectiva :: Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca
Para Siempre :: Miramar
I'll See You in Cuba :: Pablo Menendez & Mezcla
Bollyhood Bass :: David Starfire
Agua del Pozo :: Alex Cuba
el Arte de la Elegancia :: los Fabulosos Cadillacs
Tango :: Vayo
Watina :: Andy Palacio & the Garifuna Collective

this week's video feature: Alex Cuba

okay, hope your eye doesn't explode

2010-02-23T04:59:36Z

Back towards the end of last year, the local sports talk radio stations got synergized or mergerated or whatever. Basically, the bigger co. bought out the smaller one and they combined the two AM stations down into one. The rumor at the time was that the other AM station was gonna be sold and become a rightwing political talk station. Until that happened they were just planning to rebroadcast the FM sports talk. So I hadn't tuned in probably since sometime in December but in a fit of boredom with all other options, I scanned over last Friday to discover that they're becoming an oldies station. Right now, they're just playing music. No DJs and hardly any ads (except in AM drive time when they're still broadcasting Imus... feh!) and the bumpers say that they're auditioning over 3000 songs for the playlist. They also describe what they're playing as pop hits of the 50s and 60s. But, maybe because they're still in a testing period, I've been surprised at how wide a net they're throwing within the confines of late 20th century pop music. I've heard Nat King Cole, Bobby Darin and even Les Baxter. Also some doo wop, wall of sound, girl groups and Stax/Volt. "Leader of the Pack" and "Love Train" and "Hey Jude" also. They have gone a bit further into 70s sappy pop than I ever care to go but that's why they make it so you can change channels on your car radio. What I'm curious about is, if they end up with a 1500 song playlist, and given that I probably won't be listening every day, how long will it take before it starts to feel like I've heard everything and there's no surprises to be had. Obviously, stations playing new music get around that problem because there's always something different being added to the mix. But I know with the stations I hear at work that play oldies or classic rock there are very few moments when they drop something that surprises me in any way at all. I wonder how big the playlist for Sirius/XM stations is? Cos Sarah and I have listened for the entirety of day long road trips and barely heard any repetition at all AND had multiple occasions of hearing things that neither of us had ever heard before. Well, I guess if you're hearing 12 songs an hour, then 8 hours would still only be 96 songs so you wouldn't need that big a playlist to avoid repetition.

how about some cheese and nerds?

2010-02-22T03:37:58Z

Here's a nice review of Tinariwen from their NYC concert. Saw them in Chapel Hill last Monday, the first night of their US tour. Amazing show. They were supposed to play at Duke last April but that show was canceled. So, yeah, I've been waiting for this concert since August 2008, when tix for the 08/09 Duke Performance season went on sale. And even with my unreasonably high expectations, I was not disappointed. Was surprised and pleased that I actually recognized a bunch of songs they played including "Tamodjerazt Assis" from the most recent CD and "Arawan" from Amassakoul. It might even be a good thing that their 2009 show here didn't happen since this time founding member Ibrahim Ag Alhabib was part of the tour. I knew he was supposed to be there but he did not come out with the rest of the band, who played a couple of numbers before he came on stage, guitar slung over his back. Definitely one of the cooler entrances and you could just tell (to paraphrase Homer Simpson) that he was gonna do something and it was gonna be really cool. And it was. Absolutely do not miss them if you have a chance.

i did have quite a few raspberry martinis

2010-02-20T23:16:10Z

Interesting post by Alyssa Rosenberg, one of the folks guest-blogging for Ta-Nehisi Coates this past week, all abou yiddish swing. Sarah's played some stuff from Yiddish Melodies in Swing on Divaville Lounge and I just discovered today that XDU has the comp From Avenue A to the Great White Way in our library. I love the story about Sammy Cahn discovering "Bi Mir Bist Du Schön" at the Apollo Theater and the journey the song then took.
In more local and contempo music news, one of my fellow DJs was apparently thrown out of a bar/club in downtown last night for heckling. Srsly. I mean, I wasn't there so I only know what happened from accounts on Facebook. But I will say that: (1) I have generally good faith in his ability to evaluate the quality of a performance; (2) while pretty much any act might get heckled somewhere, and while some acts are always gonna be too far out for any crowd to get (I once saw a crowd at a Devo concert heckling/throwing shit at Suicide), there are also plenty of people out there who do, in fact, suck, and should get off the stage.

we are gonna weaponise a pumpkin

2010-02-19T05:06:48Z

Couple of interesting articles for the food geeks: a thoughtful defense of slow food. Yes, I agree that "slow food" isn't a great name but I think we can all agree that SOLE food is even worse. Acronyms? Feh! (and, anyway, even if we all can't agree, 100% of the writers of this blog think it's stupider and I almost always agree with what I think). I'm not all-in and down with every aspect of slow food but in general anything that leads to people being more thoughtful about what and how they're eating is a good thing. I'm not sure how mindlessly shoveling any old thing into your mouth became a conservative value. You'd think that, with its emphasis on preserving traditions, that slow food would be a natural for conservatives.
Coming from a slightly different place, but still geektastic in its own way, is this -- Grant Achatz discussing Bocuse d'Or. Achatz was asked by Thomas Keller to be part of the selection committee that picked the chef who will represent the US in the next competition.