hello from italy--Florence!!--we are off to Cammillo, where the speciality is pasta with shaved dried tuna roe!!!--we have had some great meals and the old bread salads (old bread soaked in various liquids than mixed with different veggies herbs...chilled!!!) are going to be a must to try back home!! viva italia!!
Little glitch on this page today (where it was printing out the whole page back to January, everytime.) Should be O.K. now. Sorry 'bout that.
I've got the mad skillzThis is the coolest flash yet. Click on the blue circle to enable maximum options. Then start cuttin' it up. Make sure you mouse around a lot to find all the potential for bomb droppin. Damn that s#%t is phat. (:)
is the nsa now admitting to echelon?
seeing lots of reporting today (nothing new, just what we've already heard) in The Independent, UPI and NY Times...)
Someone had this book at the bar last night (which bar? My bar, of course.) And then today, Rasterweb had a link to it. I guess everyone is getting ready for surviving some worst case scenarios. Interesting book; hopefully not too useful.
Jul 04, 2000

Celebrating the 4th of July or the day of the dog: I've never really associated myself with any of those national holidays—I mean, I wasn't there when Columbus discovered America, cheering as he set foot on our shores, or dining with the Pilgrims and Indians in Massachusetts on that first turkey with all those side dishes and triptophane problems on the third Thursday in November; Memorial Day; Labor Day; President's Day; Christmas (ok, I still see those guys occasionally on street corners in December and I remember sitting on Santa Claus's knee in some department store and getting my picutre taken and looking at it in my parents bedroom for the next 20, 30, 40 years and wondering what that guy really looked like behind the beard); New Year (I've been at least semi-conscious for that one every time it happens and also for the way it stays with you a while until you successfully make the transition to the new date). Why don't they just lump them all together and give everybody 10 days off: eat, remember, shop, labor, etc. etc? But the 4th of July, of course I wasn't there when they signed the paper, and there is no video of events. However, I was there the first time I ate a hot dog, and I've been there every time since. My anticipated excitement was rekindled yesterday with the announcement that employee meal at 71 Clinton would consist of the revered combination of hot dogs, french fries and ketchup (for some). After several hunter gatherer attempts by various staff members the requisite hot dog buns were procured. In this instance, amid great controversy amongst the various male members of the staff, the chef's choice of preparation prevailed and the dogs were boiled and served. (But without the ever-important celery salt, which is a key element to the enjoyment of the boiled dog, which the chef fondly remembers first having with his father in the famous Rhode Island style.) His father, not being present for staff meal returned to the restaurant to find a pile of naked dogs covered by cling-wrap on a plate in his wine storage area. Knowing that my beloved Rachael had not partaken of the staff meal, I proceeded to sculpt what we were both to agree was a divine dining experience: a little butter smeared on the rolls prior to toasting them a golden brown, the hot dogs themselves grilled with well done sweet, crispy bits and then combined with the rolls and some Dijon mustard resulted in smiles and moans of gustatory delight. Now, to the point of all this fluff I've been spouting: what to drink with the dog? At the end of the work night Rachael and I were again hungry, so, at her urging I repeated the earlier gastronomic experience, this time unexpectedly elevating our enjoyment with the accompaniement of a delicious dry 1998 Gewürztraminer (Estate Bottled) from Navarro and a sample of a 1999 white Crozes Hermitage from Alain Graillot (Rousanne and Marsanne grapes) from that notorious bon vivant "the Wheel." [posted by dew-dah]
250,000 presold copies to be delivered around the globe by 9,000 Amazon.com ordered FedEx trucks? I'm gonna have to read one of those Harry Potter's someday. Until then, however, let me suggest one from a transplanted Brooklyner by the name of William Kowalski, his '99 novel, EDDIE'S BASTARD is a real fine "coming of age" story. Also I would like to express my regrets for not being at Bill's Fourth of July Bash and would like to be the first--or if not the first, the skinniest--to say, Happy Birthday Lady Liberty.
article on nobu from salon .
Frustration last night, as I kept getting busy signals from ISP Inch. Then I caught the TV news saying that Bell Atlantic had outages from Maine to Virginia. A cut cable. Couldn't post till this morning. Felt justified in fudging the date. The more we depend on this technology, the more reliability becomes an issue. I suspect we don't really have the fall-back positions we need. Where'd I stash that Y2K manual?
meet the balduccis.
google pats itself on the back.
heres a pretty good napster article from inside regarding their impending legal strategies.
The "first draft" of the Human Genome Project is complete. Get me rewrite!
6/24/00 very fine dinner and lots of future promise for Blue Hill--1) nice wine list with modest markup 2) fresh seafood with tasty presentation and the prices are fair!! 3) there is an outdoor garden (we forgot to look at it) 4) desserts were super--they are new and will grow like adding a cheese plate which would have been nice when we ate--maybe there was too much butter but this is something i need to figure out is it that essential to fine dining...
Beyond here there be dragons.
alex are you aware of the NYC Rooftop Honey?? Linden, Locust, clover and flowers provide the pollen!! Ther are upper west side cuvee's.
I haven't put too much time into it, but I'll bet I could waste a few hours (or worse) in here. Looks like a real attempt at a hypertext novel. This was a big idea in academic circles ten years ago (at least where I was at school,) but as far as I can tell, never really caught on with the people actually making the web (as opposed to the scholars just thinking about the web.) Anyway, this is what some people were saying was going to happen to writing. Think it will catch on?
I used to take my art-rock very seriously. Dr. Progresso still does.
Here's an article on the possibility of micropayments (the ability to charge a very small amount for web content.) This idea has been around for a long time, but hasn't ever caught on (for some technical, and maybe other reasons.) Now it looks like it might be almost ready for real use. Would this be a good thing? Or is it better for the web that people write things just because they want to? (from hack the planet, but now I see that Kottke is talking about this, and I guess it's hot on metafilter too. What comes around...)
I don't usually like to get cc's of joke mail, but I did get a funny one relating to the latest virus (which I've already received about twenty copies of, at work).
It's the Voluntary Compliance Virus: "please erase your hard drive, then send this message to everyone you know. Thank you for your cooperation."
How about this new sport (?): geocache. Thanks to the improved Global Positioning System (GPS) information now available to people without security clearances, all sorts of new opportunities have been opened up. Like this crazy sport (again: ?) where people hide caches of "stuff" around the planet (often in pretty out of the way, hard to get to places) and then players try to find the stuff. Not really a sport I guess, but sort of interesting. Somebody stop me if you hear I'm getting into this. From the site
"Geocaches are already located in many locations around the world. Many thanks go out to the geocachers that have placed geocaches. It's just as challenging to create a good geocache as it is to find one. If you find a good geocache and you enjoyed the adventure of the journey to find it, be sure to thank the geocacher by writing your comments in the logbook or sending them an email. Geocaching can be a fun and rewarding new sport that welcomes us to the 21st century with many new adventures."
Welcome to Mark, new author of roll your own one lap (although possibly that's not really the title.) I'm not exactly sure what this is going to be, but he comes with high recommendations. Not sure if he is reading this page, but feel free to introduce yourself Mark, if you want. Or not. Either way we'll check out what you are doing, which isn't too clear to me at this point, but I believe it involves some love of auto racing, combined with a (chronical of a?) sabbatical from the wild world of information technology. This may or may not become the future home of his page, so make real nice, and maybe we can add another to our strange little world.