Posted in Entertainment, Life, Motorcycles, News, News and Politics on November 30, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Surfing around, I see news reports that Evel Knievel has died. Back in the 1970’s, at the height of his popularity, it would have been hard to overestimate the number of ten- to twelve-year old boys who didn’t have fantasies of being this most daring of daredevils. Makeshift wooden ramps sprouted in driveways [...]
Posted in Drink, Entertainment, Food and Drink, Hobbies, Life, News, News and Politics on November 29, 2007 | 1 Comment »
A few years ago a co-worker gave me a copy of Big Shots: The Men Behind the Booze for Christmas. It’s an interesting little book full of witty, earthy, and sometimes sophomoric, anecdotes involving some of the legends and actual history of liquor. Now, I’m not sure this is a good thing, but the nuggets of [...]
Posted in Entertainment, Life, Music, News, News and Politics on November 24, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Yes, it’s Black Friday. At least for the next twenty-five minutes. Anyway, today is the day after Thanksgiving and the day retailers look to put them in the black for the rest of the year. Despite my comments about holidays and my general frustration with the extreeeeeeeme commercialization and commodification that has taken place my [...]
Posted in Cooking, Drink, Food, Food and Drink, Life on November 22, 2007 | No Comments »
It’s Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. Like so many other holidays it has been almost, but not quite, completely overtaken by our consumer culture. As a holiday grounded in thankfulness for the harvest, food is even more central to its celebration, and even more rigidly bound to a particular canon - roast turkey, potatoes, [...]
Posted in Entertainment, Life, Music, News, News and Politics on November 12, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Getting dinner together this evening a story on NPR’s “All Things Considered” caught my ear. It was the mention of the 1970s and 1980s hit music duo Daryl Hall and John Oates that first got my attention, but then the story about the Philadelphia variant of soul music kept me interested, including an interpretation [...]
Posted in Business, Life, News, News and Politics on November 9, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Interesting that American Public Media should have started its series “Consumed” today. For some time now, but becoming even more pronounced in recent weeks, is a growing sense I’ve had that we have finally begun to see the results of our (unsustainable) consumer culture. For everyone on Earth to consume the way the average American [...]
Posted in Blogroll, Computers, Computers and Internet, Hobbies, Internet, Life, Writing on November 3, 2007 | 1 Comment »
In a recent post on his blog my friend Brian reminded me of my own interest in fountain pens and got me thinking about the tools we use to communicate in writing. Fountain pens are no longer the minor fad they were ten years or so ago, but pen collecting has its share of avid devotees. There are sites [...]
Posted in Entertainment, Food, Food and Drink, Humor on November 1, 2007 | 1 Comment »
Apparently this is not a recent innovation in kitchen technology. And to think I’ve still been cooking bacon the hard way.
