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Below are the 25 most recent journal entries.

	2008.07.10  14.11 I love computer geeks I've been learning Python recently, and I've continually been frustrated with the proliferation of Monty Python jokes. That shit was funny when I was 15, and in-jokes gave me a sense of belonging. Using in-jokes to document a major programming language is intentionally obfuscatory. It says, "Nobody likes me." It says, "clubhouse PRIVATE KEEP OUT no girls allowed." And why, pray tell, does nobody like you? Let's try this gem on for size. It was google hit #1 for "python tab delimited" I am making a gui for the purpose that I can change the values in a list of different criteria which is found in a text file, such as: Name(tab)rating(tab)breast size(tab)occurrences In my more vitriolic moments, I'm fond of comparing geek culture to WASP culture or meathead culture. Emotional dysfunction, huge amounts of power in certain circles, ironclad social norms, rampant misogyny and racism. Yaaay!

	2008.06.09  20.44 Apparently, Congressman Kucinich has introduced articles of impeachment. Please note what I saw when I clicked through to DailyKos for the story:

	2008.05.15  20.23 It feels like summer The heat wasn't enough. It was when I started washing the arugula that came in our farm share yesterday. That smell, with the balmy evening, kicked things over into summer territory. This stuff is now tied to my memory of seasons from when I first started getting veggies from a CSA, and arugula was the first thing that came out of that box that knocked my socks off. Later that year there were the tomatoes, the brussels sprouts, the butternut squash; but this got in early, hiding among the meager, green, alien late spring offerings like mustard and dandelion greens and "braising mix". That year wageslave taught me a trick he'd picked up in Italy, and I've been following it ever since. Just wrap a shaving of pecorino romano in a leaf of arugula, and eat it. The moistness of the green sets off the salt of the cheese, and the milk from the cheese takes just enough of the pepper edge off the green. I prefer this with really fresh arugula, stuff that was picked that day or the day before and hasn't been refrigerated. I know this makes me a snob, but I'm taking a real visceral joy from the knowledge that my dinner has never seen a fridge, and from the big chunks of dirt it left on my counter.

	2008.05.15  10.47 It is never too early in the morning for this sort of thing The California Supreme Court has ruled that marriage should be sex-blind. Article here. So when is the party? It was pretty thrilling to be in Cambridge in '04 for the celebration at City Hall.

	2008.05.15  09.55 It's too early in the morning to see something like this Last.fm has just informed me that Scarlett Johansson has an album coming out.

	2008.02.28  12.15 Nader in '08! No, not really. But am I the only one here who has noticed that he's picked Matt Gonzales for his running mate? It puts a new spin on yesterday's Gonzales piece, that's for sure.

	2008.02.20  22.22 It appears that they got the satellite. So far, though, this is the closest thing to a photo that I can find on flickr. If that is even a photo of the shootdown. The debris should have been visible over Seattle and Vancouver, so someone must have gotten a shot of it, right? N.b., the debris would have flown directly over Hawaii, but it was daytime there; the satellite would have made landfall over the west coast of Canada roughly 10 minutes later, around 7:35pm local time, well after sunset.

	2008.02.18  15.34 Pasta con Embogones (due to Marcella Hazan) I've narrated this recipe several times over the past few days, so I figured I'd post it. It's one of my favorites, it's simple, and it's damn tasty. Here's my usual version of Marcella's recipe. Ingredients: 1.5# dried cranberry beans 1/4# pancetta, minced 1/2 bunch fresh sage leaves, washed, dried and slivered (about 12, 2-3" leaves) 1t dried rosemary, ground 1 medium onion, minced 4 medium garlic cloves, minced 2t olive oil 1# dried egg pappardelle Preparation: Rinse beans and soak overnight (or at least 6 hours) in cold water. Drain soaking water, rinse, and put in a large pot with 3" water covering. Bring to a boil, watching carefully, and as soon as it boils reduce to a slow simmer. Skim off any foam that comes to the top. Cover and simmer 45 minutes to 1 hour, until beans are tender but not mushy. Drain the beans but reserve at least 2 cups of the soaking water. Put salted water for the pasta on to boil before preparing other ingredients; keep at a simmer until needed. Place olive oil, onion, and pancetta in a large skillet and heat over medium-heat, stirring frequently. When the mixture begins to sizzle, add ~1/2t salt. Continue cooking, stirring, about 5 minutes, until the onions are translucent and the pancetta has cooked down. Put the pasta in the boiling water, stirring to keep it from sticking. Add the garlic, sage, and rosemary, stirring to comibine, and cook another 30 seconds to a minute, until the garlic just begins to smell but doesn't burn. Add the beans and reduce heat to medium-low. Stir the mixture to combine thoroughly, then mash half to three-quarters of the beans in the pan with a heavy spoon. If the mixture is too dry — you're going for a cream-sauce consistency — add a bit of the cooking water from the beans. Salt to taste. When the pasta is cooked, drain and toss with a small amount of olive oil to keep it from sticking. Serve the sauce over the pasta, topped with generous helpings of freshly-grated Parmesan cheese and freshly-ground black pepper. Notes and substitutions: Beans. I prefer cranberry beans, my favorite bean, and they're what Marcella calls for. They're not sold everywhere, but Rainbow and Berkeley Bowl have them in bulk, and Goya sells 1- and 3# bags of them. They look like pinto beans, only with scarlet spots instead of brown. You can substitute cannellini (white kidney) beans with good results. Boiling the beans too vigorously will detract from the texture. You can cook the dried beans a day or two ahead and refrigerate: remove the beans from the cooking liquid to cool, but to keep them moist, put them back in the liquid once both have cooled. Fresh beans in season will be even better than dried; use 3#, shelled and boiled for 5 minutes, again reserving a few cups of the cooking liquid. You can use canned beans, though the taste and texture will suffer slightly. Make sure to use plain beans, like the ones from Goya, Westbrae, or Eden, and not the sweetened, salted crap Progresso and Safeway sell. I've never found canned cranberry beans, so if you see them, by all means, tell me! Fresh sage. The biggest thing you can do to make this dish amazing is to use fresh sage. At $1.50 for an organic bouquet, it's a great investment. If using dried sage, use 1/2t. Fresh rosemary will not have the same effect, since it dries so well, but it sure won't hurt. Pancetta. This makes a great veg or vegan dish if you just skip the pancetta. The beans and sage are the main flavors, so it doesn't suffer for the omission. I've tried making it with guanciale, but I like the slight meatiness of pancetta better. Avoid bacon as the smokiness will clash with the dish. Mincing. The sauce will be creamier, and the texture superior, if you mince the onion garlic, and pancetta quite finely. Pasta. Egg pappardelle will complement the dish best, but large shapes like rigatoni or penne will also work well.

	2008.02.09  15.09 Camden Market Hey, London people, any news on what's been damaged in the fire?

	2007.10.30  20.09 USGS is failing us! 5 minutes, and still no information. I'm guessing 4.7. ETA: 5.6 — wow!

	2007.10.24  19.15 I am finding this fascinating. It's a map, published by San Diego TV station KPBS, of the Witch and Harris fires. Now, I've seen folks use Google maps tools before, but this is far and away the most detailed work that I've seen done with the drawing tools. I feel like this could be breakthrough for Google Maps, smaller but in a similar vein to what Colbert's Correspondents' Dinner performance did for YouTube. They're not the only ones using this, either. The OC Register is tracking the extents of the Santiago fire, including a list of individual homes that have burned.

	2007.10.16  20.49 This is weird... KQED is currently playing an interview from last month, in which Daniel Handler interviews Ben Gibbard. That's not weird. What's weird is that they play a cover of The Magnetic Fields' Why I Cry.

	2007.09.30  02.52 So, about 2:30 on a Saturday night. Living where I do, I'm not expecting any surprises. We have a garage, and my friends are blocking the drive so I made them put the keys in the lockbox so my upstairs neighbors could move the car if needed. I walk out my front door to go fetch the keys. I hear the sound of piss splattering on concrete. This is nothing new. I look around. There's a guy, a young guy, skinny pants and a small hat, walking down the street. With his dick out of his pants, just pissing as he walks. If this was me, and I really, really had no choice but to piss on the street, I'd be pissing standing still. But no, he's walking down the street, pissing. No hands, either; again, if this was me, I'd at least be using one hand to avoid pissing on my pants. I say, "well, that's a new one!" and he says, "oh, you caught me, I guess I'll just piss in the dirt." By which he means the flowerbox in front of my house. I fetch the keys. I walk back inside. Young guy comes back, and good naturedly attempts to make ammends by inviting me to a party two houses down. I don't get this. I get that people piss on the street. What I don't get is a) pissing while walking forward; b) subsequently inviting you to a party at your neighbors' house. This guy was pretty coherent, too. No slurring. Mood: derrrrrr Music: The Bolshoi — The Barrowlands

	2007.09.25  15.15 I need recommendations for a stylist, stat. Preferrably someone both good and reasonably-priced.

	2007.09.17  00.08 Just spent my whole day cooking with heresiarch. To show for it, I've now got a freezer full of beef stock and leaf lard. Pics to follow. At lunch, we managed to use 5 of the 6 burners on our range, plus the oven, which is a record for us so far. For dinner, white pea beans in stock, home-baked bread, and a nectarine crisp for dessert. Speaking of lard, I now have quite a bit of it. More than I can use promptly. So if anyone wants it, I'm willing to part with it for cost. Leaf lard is impossible to find these days — I'm not just rendering it for my health — and it is far and away the best thing for pie crusts. And this isn't just any leaf lard, either, it's free-range heritage leaf lard. Mood: tired

	2007.09.01  23.03 Boring night at home. Is it just me, or did Death Cab lift the instrumentation for We Looked Like Giants from Mistle Thrush's Lillies? Music: Death Cab for Cutie — We Looked like Giants

	2007.06.14  11.42 Win At least for now, and every step makes it harder to go back: the Massachusetts Legislature has voted not to put a marriage ammendment on the ballot for the 2008 elections. (Yes, Boston friends, everyone there has seen this, but I haven't seen anyone in SF post it. Though it occurs to me that maybe folks in SF just have better things to do with their time.)

	2007.06.08  16.31 I can't believe nobody has posted this yet. I can't believe I'm posting it: No you can't have special treatment Not yours.

	2007.05.09  01.38 Okay, so I have an unhealthy obsession with political cartoons. But this one, I'm missing the point: I get the The Graduate reference; I imagine a lot of people do, given that a Google Images yields a lot of hits like this: So: wtf? That movie came out in 1967. Meaning that the "2007" image is pure 1967. I don't get it. And not in a Mallard Filmore kind of "I don't get it" way.

	2007.05.07  13.02 For maxmin; and for baconmonkey for having to deal with all the crazies for posting his maze fire video.

	2007.04.29  12.51 Jeezus christ, ppl When driving gasoline tanker, pls to not be speeding. A major interchange in Oakland collapsed this morning from a tanker fire. baconmonkey has video. Music: A Prarie Home Companion

	2007.04.07  14.30 For wageslave, structurefall, overstim Last night Eric let on that he didn't know that The State was available in digital format... it became available on iTunes recently. For him, and anyone else who might have missed this amazing occurrence, see their website for links to the iTunes store, or just look it up yourself.

	2007.04.06  11.53 Wow. I knew Charlie Crist was better than Jeb Crow, but I wasn't expecting this: Florida's governor restores ex-felons' voting rights. For those of you unfamiliar with the issue, Florida has essentially denied former convicts the right to vote. In addition to being unfair in its own right, this policy served as the basis for massive civil-rights violations in 2000, when thousands of (overwhelmingly black) non-felons were purged from the voting rolls despite having no criminal history. ETA: I double checked the numbers on the 2000 vote-fraud. They range from 8,000 people who were confirmed to have been incorrectly identified as felons, to there being only 57,000 confirmed felons on a purge list of 173,000.

	2007.02.28  17.44 Private industry: 0/2. Boston Police Department: 0/2. Everyone loses, hillarity ensues. Today, still reeling from the events of 1/31/07, the Boston Police called in their bomb squad to dispose of a suspicious device. Unsurprisingly, the device was not a bomb, but rather a traffic-monitoring device. The story looked even more awesome at first glance, when it looked like the box might have belonged to another government agency. You'll really know the Gibsonian future has arrived when municipal agencies are at war with each other. Video here, with all the hillarity you'd expect given that it's not only from Fox News, but from a local affiliate. Note that since posting their earlier version of the story, Fox 25 has managed to work 9/11 into the piece. For the handful of you out there who still remember such things (I'm looking at you, netik and atalanta), the earlier footage looks like it was edited together by EBN.

	2007.02.10  00.54 Children of Men Possibly too distracting for all the references. This is a far better version of V For Vendetta than the Weaving-Portman version. Anyone who's seen it: what's the second flag, the black one flown beneath the Union Jack? Do we ever get a good look at it?