Thursday, November 22, 2007
Jay: Happy Birthday
To Cathi Possick.
Jay: No Wonder I Feel Warm
It’s 80 degrees in the kitchen, by the outer door, opposite corner from the stove. The oven’s been off almost three hours. Then again, it’s 53 out currently, compared to recent nights it’s dropped into the twenties, and compared to an expected high of 59 during the day.
The kids are probably restless because they don’t need the pajamas they’re wearing.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Jay: I Really Wish…
That I could convey flavors via blog.
My pie crust was difficult to work with, but it was among the flakiest and best I have had. Overall, it was one of the best apple pies I have ever tasted. Deb called it “a culinary orgasm.” Apparently I am on the right track.
The leftover granny smiths are now plain applesauce for the baby and the kids, and incorporated into cranberry pie as an experiment. That looks perfect, but we actually left it intact until tomorrow.
I also made my first pumpkin bread ever, from an actual pumpkin, which produced enough to make two, so I did. One of them is more than half gone, and that’s without the kids helping. It is hands down the best pumpkin bread I have ever tasted, in a family where making them is common, and totally eclipses the pie. Except, hey, it’s pie, and “daddy made me apple pie!” Someone is in love with pie, and has been since she first encountered it. Even if it’s not blueberry.
Last thing for the night was to make a cranberry and apple sauce inspired by what I invented last night to go with pork, but this time cooked a bit more like making traditional homemade cranberry sauce, and including the zest of a small orange as well as the cranberries, two small apples, and flavor from a couple cloves and a couple inches of cinnamon stick in it for much of the cooking time. It’ll probably gel significantly, less like a chunky apple sauce or chutney, but we’ll see. The kids devoured the variant I made last night, along with some of the tastiest pork chops I’ve ever made, leftover baked macaroni and cheese, and peas.
I need to catch up on writing about this stuff at the food blog. I have a ton of tantalizing pictures.
Jay: Big Family Decedent Birthdays Today
Uncle Billy, my mother’s oldest brother, would have been 76 today. Odd to think that he was younger than I am now when he drowned, along with his brother, while out lobstering on March 19, 1975. My main childhood memories of Middleboro center around times I stayed at his house for long stretches, easy walking distance from here.
Aunt Elsie, my father’s mother’s sister, was also born this day. I absolutely adored her when I was little. I don’t know what year she was born, but when she died several years ago, she was well into her nineties. She is one of the people Valerie particularly resembles.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Deb: I can only assume…
That it’s the cold the kids have been passing back and forth that just knocked me right on my ass. I had a bit of a sore throat at lunchtime, and I feel completely gross now. New record for how quick that hit, I think.
It’s going to be a long winter, isn’t it?
Jay: It’s Snowing
First snow of the season. Nothing impressive, but there it is. We can say we didn’t turn the heat on until after the first snow.
What’s annoying is the raw feeling to the air when it’s actually too warm in here for the heat to run even if it were on. That started yesterday. Made me feel almost like putting on long pants and a sweatshirt when the thermometer said 70.
Jay: Timely Next Great American Band Thoughts
Friday’s Next Great American Band was a shocker. Franklin Bridge was a victim of demographics in the voting, much as Light of Doom was clearly a beneficiary. Tween girls have to be burning up the lines voting for the pretty little boys who actually managed to impress me this week.
Franklin Bridge was extremely popular from what I could tell of the buzz. While not entirely my thing, I consider them extremely talented and marketable. I’d be shocked not to find them signed by someone after the show’s run ends. I would, from a business perspective.
When it came down to them and Tres Bien, much as I like Tres Bien, I was certain they were gone. So were they, based on their shocked reaction and their classy nod toward the other band.
That makes it especially cool that Tres Bien was hands down best of the week, much as Cliff Wagner was the previous week. I was reminded of early Stones or perhaps The Who.
The Clark Brothers were meh this week, to me, in a way I perhaps can’t define well. I thought the choice of song was foolish, and the singing reminded me of my brother when he is so-so trying too hard and not using his own voice as he should.
Dot Dot Dot was at their best this week and they’ve grown on me to the point where I have to say I like them. The dude can sing, and it might matter less for him the genre than for the others there. The look and antics aren’t necessary, except for marketing and proclaiming their expected audience. The talent is there. In fact, I can’t see any remaining band, or any remaining after Rocket and The Muggs, not being marketable in some reasonable form. Denver may be “corporate,” for instance, but they could make a good living performing. In fact, they are Taylor Hicks-like in their appeal as a potentially compelling live show in a modest sized venue.
Who will go next week? On the merits of being stellar this week, maybe not Tres Bien. Someone will probably be a combined victim of demographics and their own not-as-good this week. Clark Brothers? Cliff Wagner? Both still adequate to good, but given that the youngsters were both better than before and clearly riding the crest of the youth vote tsunami, they have to be called safe. Dot Dot Dot apparently benefits from the demographics too. Call them safe. I was surprised how well Denver did. If that was demographics, and their performance, which I liked, didn’t hurt them, they may be surprisingly safe. Six Wire is too good, too favored, and too sexy to be in danger. Who does that leave? Clark Brothers, Cliff Wagner and Tres Bien. On strength of performance, It should come down to Cliff Wagner or Clark Brothers. However, it could come down to one of them versus Tres Bien. I love Cliff Wagner, but if I had to deduce who goes I would probably name them based on voting patterns and performances. It should be the Clark Brothers who go. They’ll Carrie on regardless, after all, but they’re almost too niche even compared to others, and they don’t have enough other appeal.
Jay: Speaking of Domains…
It’s curious that any domain I try to check the Page Rank of this morning return 0. That includes Instapundit and Google, as well as AV, BB and Bizosphere.
Update:
Ah, tried a third site and it’s returning “temporarily unavailable.” So it’s Google, and a difference in error/outage handling among sites offering the service.
Jay: Contemplating…
The idea of selling off an underused domain name belonging to the business, which people approached us about buying over the years. The first time, it was the gold rush days and if they’d gotten back to us, we’d have probably been asking $10,000 (it’s still a good name, but I doubt I’d get that much). Another time we were going to ask $2000, which wouldn’t be unreasonable now and might have been cheap then. Then there was one offer to buy it from a clueless person who wanted to pay what it would cost to register the domain with Network Solutions for a year. That was amusing.
Since it’s an asset I am unlikely to use, with potentially very real value - I should probably pay the $5.99 for an evaluation - it makes sense to liquidate it.
Anyone know anything about selling domains?
Deb: Thank God they finished the story arc before all hell broke loose.
***Spoilers below the jump***
Jay: Happy Birthday
To blogger Livey.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Jay: Food Engineering
On my second try I seem to have perfected the basic idea behind making baked macaroni and cheese. I didn’t write about the first time, so I’ll be able to make it a two for over at the food blog, once I have the pictures of the most perfect looking macaroni and cheese I have ever seen. The fun thing is I used a recipe that was hopelessly wrong, managed to get it close despite that the first time, and that left me knowing how to correct it.
Which speaks to a funny thing about how I cook. I like to internalize a type of thing, really understand it, then I can extrapolate from it. I am planning to make pie crust, and the most useful thing on that I have seen is a conceptual description. Not a recipe, but an explanation of pie dough being pieces of fat coated in flour and coaxed to adhere together. Thus the advice around being cold. You don’t want the fat to mix in, but to stay in discrete pieces. I could probably make an edible crust without a recipe to follow, just knowing that much, and roughly what variations in ingredients exist.
Of course, I figured out the other day I have no pie plates, except a shallow Pyrex one…
Deb: Working on my entry for the “World’s Worst Mother” Award.
Last night? Let my three-month-old taste applesauce.
Clearly I am going to parenting hell.
Jay: Solar Energy
How is one to take advantage of the sun to warm the house during the day when all these clouds are in the way? Sheesh.
On another note, you should see what happens when a can of expanding insulating foam does not fully close its valve after being used to seal some particularly bad spots around a storm window frame. It’s like some alien sculpture. I’ll be sure to get pictures.
We still haven’t fired up the heat. Last night it reached just low enough in here to have maybe triggered it, at least under a presumption of accuracy. We have more sealing to do, but what can be done is almost complete. Much as I’d love to say we made it to Thanksgiving, the heat will probably go on tonight. So sad.
Jay: And In Depression News…
That whacky hippocampus! What’s it thinking, making new neurons.
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