lifebsideben

I live within walking distance of a whole lot of restaurants–probably at least a dozen. We haven’t eaten at probably half of them, as there are some we just really like and always return to. But as a public service to you, the reader (and I mean that close to in the singular sense–I know I don’t get a lot of traffic ), I’m planning a new project: visit and review every restaurant within walking distance of our place, in 2006. Actually as we’re contemplating looking to buy a house, and there’s almost zero chance of us affording something in our current ‘hood, maybe the goal should be within 6 months. That’s the plan anyhow. The first step for organized people might be to make a list of all the eateries within that radius (say, .5 mile)… but that’s no fun. We’ll just keep going places, until we exhaust the possibilities. Now, there is a very real possibility that this will make my plan to cut down on what I eat more difficult, but I’m willing to take on that challenge, in the name of science… or food criticism… or, just in the name of enjoying life!

First up is going to be the new prime rib joint on Burlingame Avenue, I think it’s called “Prime on the Avenue” or something similar. We were walking by tonight while out for a stroll and got reservations for tomorrow night. Onward!

Tags: food, review

I got a bunch of goodies for Hanukkah this year, so thought I’d share for those of ya that might care:

Books:

• The Areas of My Expertise, by John Hodgman; this book is hilarious
• The Google Story, by David Vise and Mark Malseed
• Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell
• Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta
• Unuseless Japanese Inventions, by Kenji Kawakami
• Catch a Fish, Throw a Ball, Fly a Kite by Jeffrey Lee

Toys & miscellany:

• Birduzasu, a Neo-Kaiju figure by Tim Biskup
• PSP Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for PSP
• A LED-festooned spinning top with sound (”Laser Tech Top“)
• A bouncing star-shaped rubber thingy with color cycling LEDs inside
• A huge scented candle

Gift to myself:

• Espresso machine (DeLonghi EC701 Espresso Maker–hasn’t gotten the best reviews, but got a great price on it at Bed Bath & Beyond, and used one of their ubiquitous coupons… so far, so good.)

So pretty much, I’d better start taking the train to work more religiously so I can get to reading all this stuff! At least it’s a lot easier to get the brain functioning with a nice café con leche before I head out!

Tags: Hanukkah, holidays

I use my credit card to pay for just about everything, in large part because it earns me miles on the airline I use to go home and see the parents, but also because it’s convenient to reconcile spending at the end of the month. I’ve noticed I almost never get asked for ID anymore during the transaction. I was writing this off to the fact that I’m in my 30s now and look vaguely respectable, and I suppose don’t normally buy stuff high on the “fraud” list (the stuff like that I do buy, like DVDs and electronics, I tend to buy online.) Recently I became curious about this and searched around on the net a bit, and realized, you actually aren’t required to show ID. In fact, you’re wise NOT to show ID. Why not? Apparently, as long as the card is signed, that’s proof enough; whomever possesses the card, and signs the invoice, the merchant is supposed to check the signature against the back of the card, period. (Whether they actually DO check the signature is a different issue.) That’s why the card isn’t valid for transactions until signed. If you present an unsigned card, the merchant is supposed to require you to sign it, or deny the transaction. They cannot, however, require identification; the signature IS primary identification, to Visa. This apparently reduces the possibility of ID theft to some extent (if the merchant never sees your ID, they can’t copy your birthdate and other information down, for example.) I believe it probably also protects Visa from some amount of fraud as well, but whatever the rationale, they can’t ask.

Since I discovered this a few months ago, I’ve not given my ID to anyone when charging items.

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I had to be at work pretty early yesterday to be on a phone call with folks in India, so I took the earlier train (7:30am). On my way to the station I typically walk through the post office parking lot, and this particular time I noticed a dog in the lot, eating scraps from a discarded pizza box. It looked like he had tags, and was of a breed (I suck at identifying dog breeds, but it seemed to be a fairly fancy one.) Also, I recognized the dog, but I wasn’t sure from where. I thought it might even be my next-door-neighbor’s, and I know theirs had gone missing at least once before. I decided I should see if there was a phone number on his tags, because if it were my dog, I’d definitely want someone to let me know where my dog had run off to…

Now, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to bother dogs while they’re eating, but this guy was pretty halfheartedly picking through pizza remains, and I approached slowly, speaking in a calm voice. I managed to get to his collar, and rotate it around to the tags, and noticed this dog was positively filthy. Smelled bad, greasy coat, just gross. But, there was a tag with a name (”Moxie” I think it was) and a phone number. I called the number and someone answered and said something I didn’t quite catch, and I asked “Do you have a dog named Moxie?”, they replied “Yeah…”. I asked “Is he lost?” and they said “No, no, he’s just running off the leash–where is he?”. I told the man, and he said “oh, that’s right across the street from here. It’s fine.” I said, “uhm, ok…” and hung up. Then I realized what he had said when he answered the phone was the name of a bar a half block away, and that I had seen this dog lying on the sidewalk in front of that bar before.

So this got me pretty irritated–one, that this dog looked pretty pathetic, and was so dirty, and apparently at least somewhat hungry, and had a good chance of getting hit by a car; and two, that my hand was now pretty gross from touching the dog, and I wanted to buy a bagel, but didn’t want to touch anything I was going to eat, for sure. The bagel joint I like doesn’t have a public restroom, so I ended up going to Starbuxx just so I could use their bathroom. And since I felt a little guilty about just using their restroom, I bought a hot chocolate (for $2.70!!) which wasn’t even very good. I kept thinking about poor Moxie though.

Tags: bitching, pets

I had said I wasn’t going to watch season 2 of ‘Lost’, in large part because they strung me along though a lot of crap I didn’t care about (e.x., anything about the Kate character), when I wanted to know about what was In The Hatch. And at the end of the season, ABC figured, eh, it’s a smash hit! Screw explaining things, we could get syndication out of this beyotch!

So really, I wasn’t going to watch season 2, that’s how pissed I was. But then I started reading the Lost forums over at Television Without Pity (or TWoP for those of ya kewl kidz), and learned that (a) they were going to reveal what was in the hatch in the first episode of season 2 and (b) that the show’s producers promised it would be worth it. Sigh. So, I watched.

And WHOA! It was a damn good episode, except for the amount of flashback to the Jack (also-don’t-care-about-him-much) character, but that was partially needed to advance the mystery that unfolded. So yes, we saw what was in the hatch. And no, it didn’t answer many questions, but certainly introduced a ton of new ones. Nice. I’m sucked in. Damn you ABC! One more thing to fill up the tivo with this fall.

On the other hand, I also caught the pilot of ‘Invasion’ afterward. Bah. Pod people. Characters doing things that make no sense. Funny looking actors, not acting particularly well. I think the pilot was it for me on that one.

Had to watch Martha Stewart Apprentice, too… partly because a bunch of folks at the office are playing the fantasy game. So far, so blah. The first episode was pretty lame. Martha just ain’t The Donald, and the contestants are… well, first-season-Apprentice caliber at best. The absolutely most annoying character Jim seems to be the wiliest of the bunch, although I don’t think he can win because (a) he is just sooo fucking annoying and (b) he doesn’t look like Martha’s type. But then again I wouldn’t have expected Martha to hire the cigar-chomping ex-EMI, “I can run anyone’s company while they’re in prison” dude, either. (I forget his name, but he ran Steve Madden’s business while he was in da slamma too.) Anyway, I’m giving A:MS a couple more episodes.

Tags: Apprentice, Lost, TV

Today was the first day in my son’s 10+month life that he really got directly exposed to the word “no”. Seems kind of sad, but it was truly necessary, even if it’s probably my own fault.

A few days ago we were feeding Alex and the cat, as he usually does, came around to see what was going on, and beg for food, what have you. Since we were actually feeding Alex some small bits of chicken, and I was in a generous mood, I gave the cat some. The cat then wanted some more, and it was easier to grab a piece off of Alex’s tray and drop it to the floor for the cat, than get more from the bag. Here the trouble began. Alex apparently saw this, and decided the next day that he’d try and feed the cat too. So while he was eating some veggie puff things, the cat came around, and –plop– Alex dropped on one the floor near the cat. Of course, these being vegetable-and-starch-based items, the cat would have none of it, but it didn’t stop Alex. Another one was dropped. We switched to his main course (something from a bottle) and he stopped, I presume because he liked it too much to try and share with the cat. Seemed to be the last of the cat-feeding behavior…

Until today, of course. Val calls to say “well, I have a lot to thank you for today, including now that Alex won’t eat anything, he only wants to drop things on the floor for the cat!” I thought she was exxagerating, but when I got home and fed him dinner, sure enough, the cat came around, and Alex meticulously picked up the items (more veggie puffs, unfortunately for the cat) and dropped them carefully over the side of the tray. Neither I, nor the cat, was impressed. He seemed very happy with himself doing this, as well. So I looked at him plainly, and as he moved his arm over the edge to drop one, said firmly “No”, and moved his arm back. This just elicted smiles of joy and repeated behavior. I tried not to mirror this, and instead encouraged him when one actually made it into his mouth. But I don’t think this is going to be resolved quite that quickly, unfortunately.

I was sad that I had to say ‘no’, probably 10 times, to him today. But he knew was he was doing, and he needed to know it wasn’t acceptable. But until now, he’s pretty much never done anything “wrong”, intentionally, as far as I could tell. It’s sort of sad, but I guess it’s gotta start sometime. I’m sure, if there is any karma or justice in this world, I’m going to have a bit of a bad little kid to make up for my behavior as a child

Tags: parenting, pets

So recently my team built this tool which essentially enables ‘experts’ to blog for Yahoo (unlike 360, there’s editorial workflow, fine-grained access control, etc.). The first folks to launch with it were Health. One of the most popular blogs for them is named “Real and Revealing” (or as I simply call it, “the sex blog”). Recently there was an entry about Female Orgasms. (Insert your own joke about there’s-no-such-thing-as-female-orgasms here.) Anyhow, the best part was one of the comments:

its very hard for me to have an orgasm. the sex would just feel sweet and it makes me want more and sometime dont want to stop. i have never expierence an oral some say it feel damn great to be honest i would like to explore that part of sex but not to return favour. sometime i really think my boyfriend realy suck at making love and he is not very romantic.
Posted by whilybo_2 on Tue, Jun 28, 2005, 10:30 am PDT

Nothing like complaining about your sex life, your boyfriend, and highlighting your lack of willingness to reciprocate all at once… what are you, Republican?

Tony Tam posted about Loving Y!. Tony works on the News team, and has been impressed with Yahoo since 1997. I was even more impressed with Y! after interviewing here, because I realized just how few engineers were behind some of the properties, like News. I was amazed. Now that I’ve been at Y for just over a year, I still think it’s a great place to work, but I definitely realize it’s not all type-A strivers cranking useful apps day in, day out.

I’m not a complete subscriber to the “controlled chaos” of Yahoo lore, but I wouldn’t mind if everyone did worry a little more about their reputation as an engineer (notice I didn’t say “coder” or “hacker”), as Tony mentions happened in the old days. There’s the whole gamut from pretty poor, to amazing here, which is doubtless going to be the case when there’s just SO MANY technical folks. I just find myself wishing everyone felt the pain of struggling a little more. I have a young kid, and so true, I don’t want to work 80 hours/week, but I want to work a smart, effective week. I want to really feel I’m producing at least 2X my salary in incremental revenue to Yahoo from when I started. I want to know everyone else shares that desire, too. Funnily enough, it might be just a per-individual trait. Some folks who have been here a long time and certainly don’t need the money, still burn with a passion to make things great, and achieve beyond what is expected. Others think it’s just a job and act accordingly.

I’m going to make it part of my personal challenge to inspire my (new) team to raise the bar… my biggest concern right now though is that there isn’t enough of my team to do anything but deal with the fires burning…

Tags: engineering, Yahoo

When I lived in Sarria (part of Barcelona), Spain, my wife and I frequented the O.K. Sarria (at C. Jaume Piquet, 49), which was a strange sort of Catalan fascimile of an American sports bar. There were baseball caps from American teams, a huge poster of New York at night, and Budweiser signs. Now, you couldn’t actually order a Bud (thankfully), but you could get the best burgers in town. And, giant ‘claras’, which are something like a shandy… traditionally half-lemonade and half-beer, they really quench the thirst on a hot day (or night). However, at the O.K. Bar, they made them a bit differently–half Fanta limon, half dark Estrella Bock Damm beer. That was truly great stuff.

When I moved back to the US, I couldn’t stop from craving an O.K. clara… and tried to find both Estrella Bock Damm, and Fanta Limon, to no avail. The flavors of Fanta (owned by Coke), are determined by the local bottlers/distributors, and after a couple of inquiries, I couldn’t find any U.S. distributors who carried lemon. I tried orange… yuck! I tried Squirt… nope. I tried various lemonades… un-uh. I could never tell if it was the lemon bit, or the beer… because none of the beer tasted like Bock Damm either.

Late in 2004, I went to Dallas on business, and was hanging out in a bar downtown owned by the friend of a co-worker. I asked for a good local beer, and got some Shiner Bock. Whoa! Something pretty close to Estrella Bock Damm! Excellent! It’s not quite the same, but reasonably close. And better yet, I can get it at Safeway!

OK, so now I had the beer. After much searching, I found a Yahoo Store called GermanDeli.com that I could order Fanta from… imported from Europe. I did this a few times, and while I was mightily impressed with the care they took to ship me the cans, each individually wrapped, in a styrofoam cooler, etc., it was fairly expensive. I just knew there must be a better way.

I finally found something “close enough”–it’s San Pellegrino Limonata. Available at finer stores near you (Molly Stone’s and Whole Foods near me), and mix it half and half with Shiner Bock, and you’re in for not quite the exact thing, but a pretty good version of OK Sarria’s famous (to me at least) clara. Yummmm!

Tags: food, Spain

I was at Target the other night and went down the candy isle. Why? Because I’m a masochist. And there on the shelf is the box of Whoppers. You know, the milk-carton-sized one. Full of malted milk ball yumminess. I told myself, “don’t buy it, you’ll just sit and eat the whole thing in front of the TV!”, but before my self had finished the sentence, the carton was in my cart. It must be fate.

So, after a couple days of eating a few here, a few there (and not in front of the TV, even!) I did get serious eating them the other night. Yes, in front of the TV if you must know. At one point probably 2/3 through the box, I turned to my wife and said “hey hon, do you want some of these? I know you’re not a huge malted milk ball fan, but thought I’d offer…?” to which she slowly adjusted her glaze in my direction and replied “are you just asking me to eat a couple of those so that when you finish the box you will be able to think at least you didn’t eat the entire thing all by yourself?” Ouch. Its painful because it’s true. She just knows me WAAAAYYYY too well.

Next time I’ll ask her as soon as I crack the box open.

Tags: food