Remember the aquarium screensavers?
November 27, 2007
OK, I’m showing my geek here, but this is one of the coolest (literally) PCs that I’ve seen in awhile.
Guess what my main Windows machine is going to look like in the next couple of weeks?
(and trying hard not to think of what will happen when the thing springs a leak…)
Typhoon
November 25, 2007
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Area: Multiple sites, my favorite’s on NW23rd
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Price to fill up two people: $40-$60
I don’t care what they say, Typhoon has some of the best Thai food in Portland, and the best Typhoon (there are several) is the one on 23rd and Everett in the forget-finding-a-parking-place shopping district.
Lots of good things on the menu, but when I hit it up for dinner there’s only one entree for me: Beef with grapes. It’s spicy, almost hot, with extremely tender filet and halved Thompson seedless grapes with a generous squeeze of lime juice. I know it sounds goofy, but it’s delicious. Also try that coconut-mushroom soup I can never remember the name of.
They’ve got a full bar if you’re into that kind of thing. Better still, there’s also an extensive menu of herbal teas and tea teas (I like the white teas best). Service is friendly and fast. Parking consists of about six spaces in front of the restaurant–actually finding an open space at night is a bit like winning the lottery. Otherwise, you’ll be parking a couple blocks away on the street.
Tip: Ask to sit on the street side–it’s fun to watch the tourists strolling past.
Muchas Gracias
November 25, 2007
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Area: All over Portland/Vancouver area
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Price to fill up: Less than $5
OK, it’s strip mall fare, it’s about like injecting cholesterol directly into a vein, but believe it or not the food at this 24-hour TexMex fast food place can be surprisingly tasty and fresh if you pick the right things. It’s a growing chain and a helluva lot better than (shudder) Taco Bell, so if you’re in need of a taco fix in Portland, especially in the burbs, there’s probably one nearby.
In my case, the right things are their carne asada tacos—two of them, a la carte, plus a bottle of water make a very filling meal for under $5. A colleague speaks especially well of the burritos. The beans-and-rice bit is pretty standard (and cholesterol on the hoof) so skip that part and go straight for the meat.
Happy (insert protein) Day!
November 21, 2007
Leapin’ Leopards
November 19, 2007
Question: What do you get when you cross a Morganica with a Leopard?Answer: A desire to make the Leopard (at least the Apple version) just a little more endangered
I’m beginning to think that Apple just Vista’d me (it’s embarrassing, really). Every week that Leopard lives on Freddie Mac is a week that I discover some new and ridiculous issue. This week looks to be no exception.
Book Report: Klaus Moje
November 17, 2007
This is a work weekend, which means all those glass projects I absolutely need to get to–sandblasting The Lady, cleaning up Dogwoodman, Windwoman and Hostafading so they can ship out with The Lady for acid polishing in Ohio, finishing the MM6 mold to start the next casting sequence, getting a boatload of holiday presents going, having fun with that ringbasket concept and initiating some samples, starting a new idea that’s pounding my brain and continuing a couple of tack-fuse experiments–must wait.
Drat. Somewhere in the dim recesses of my enfeebled memory I remember promising that work and art would occupy roughly equal parts of my week. Whatever happened to that?
–sigh–
Anyway, if I haven’t time to DO glass I can read (and write a bit) about it. Picked up a copy of the retrospective on Klaus Moje at the Bullseye Resource Center last Sunday, and have been noodling through it when I grab moments.
Quest for licorice
November 14, 2007
I just received a stellar example of mindless customer service letters, thought I’d share. Here’s the story:
For the past few years I’ve been seeking licorice buttons. Heide licorice buttons, to be exact. They’re the ones that used to be sold in department store candy counters across the US, the delicious black rounds, about 3/4 inch in diameter. The despair of dentists and mothers everywhere, they could pull out a filling in nothing flat and got black licorice goo all over EVERYthing.
We loved them. My family (especially my Dad and I) could go through a pound bag of those things in nothing flat. Along around 1998, I noticed that I hadn’t seen them in awhile.
The end of the middle (in software, at least)
November 12, 2007
Interesting article in BizWeek on the consolidation in the software industry, triggered by IBM’s announcement that it’s acquiring Cognos.
Cognos makes products that CEOs and accounting types love and middle managers generally hate. Their flagship product is a performance management tool that eats data like candy, and–depending on how well you’ve cleaned and polished your input–spits out balanced scorecards, dashboards, and other strategic overviews that can actually make your life (or your bosses’ lives) easier…if you pick the right set of analytics.
When the doctor is a jerk…
November 11, 2007
Read Scott Haig’s latest dissection of his patients, “When the patient is a Googler,” and I’ve got to wonder if this guy sat out the part of his training that dealt with managing patients, bedside manner, compassion, humanity, that silly thing where Hippocrates suggested that doing no harm was a good idea…
Say hello to the lady
November 9, 2007
