• The Green Fooder — We order pastured eggs, grass finished meats, and some other sundries from Mitch and love it all. Seriously. It’s well worth it in our opinion. I just hope he sticks with it.
• Home made lavender simple syrup and the Southend cocktail — I was all about this on Twitter and Facebook, but it’s worth mentioning here. Super good if you switch to Hendrick’s gin, too.
• Speaking of booze (and since I’ve decided my online — if not real life — personality has morphed into a strange combo of Dean Martin and George Carlin: booze & cussing!), you should get a copy of Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie 100 Rediscovered Recipes and the Stories Behind Them if you are into that sort of thing. The Sazerac formulation therein is a fave.
• Chef’s Planet cruets — Just got these today and they are the best thing I’ve encountered for counter-top cooking oil / vinegar storage.
• You know what I put in one of those? Spanish olive oil. Check it out. Whole Foods actually has some good olive oils under their 365 brand for reasonable prices.
• José Andrés — This guy’s “Made in Spain” show on PBS is what got me to grab some Spanish olive oil and makes me desperate to travel to España. The food looks sooooo jummy!
• Michael Ruhlman’s blog — I picked up three of his books because his blog posts are such high quality. He’s a fun follow on Twitter, too.
• Growing herbs — We have a nice little container garden outside our front door with mint (for cocktails, mostly), Italian parsley, sage, rosemary, oregano and basil. Of course, we also have lavender in the back yard. It’s totally awesome.

And just to go totally off track, I’ll also add one work/geekery item:

• Pair programming — It’s really, really, really good. For many reasons. I’m stoked we get to do it at my work these days. Now if only we could get our heads around proper testing…

• Sushi + beer + sake + friends = AWESOME
• Live burlesque. Also, The Wife potentially taking burlesque classes.
• Absinthe. I’m digging on Kübler, which is locally available now. Admittedly, I talk more people into not trying absinthe than I talk into trying it. It’s not for everyone.
• Rock Band. I’m pretty useless on anything except the singing, but it’s more fun than Karaoke Revolution because the other people are playing along with you. Drumming is unpossible for me.
• Tiki bars. Especially the Tiki Torch in Edgewater. I know one of the owners, so I’m psyched to give it a shot. I’ll be toting The Wife and her mother down this Saturday, I believe. Daddy needs a Mai Tai with a quickness!
• Anita O’Day. Holy crap! How have I never heard of her until now? Best thing to ever happen to me thanks to Plurk. (If you’re not already a Twitter user, you might try Plurk instead.) Also loving Sarah Vaughn these days.
• The Silent Years. The Globe comes out soon.
• Going to the doctor to get my first physical in who knows how many years. It seems I’m doing well. (I still have to do blood work, though.)
• Michael Phelps. Yeah… WOW.
• The iPhone 3G. Lots of people gripe about various things, but in general I say it’s damned amazing.
• Dark Knight. Saw it on IMAX. It was pretty good.
• Rumbi fish tacos. I’m stunned, but these are currently my favorite fish tacos.
• Knowing one of the guys on the next season of The Ultimate Fighter.
• Fuelly. All the cool kids are doing it.
• Bumping into an acquaintance and having their first comment be “You look good.”

And other stuff, too. That’s a pretty good list for now, though.

Enough about me, though, really. How have you been?

Some topics for discussion:

1. Have you seen the Big Picture blog at Boston.com? It’s hot — both in the “that’s sexy” way and that all the cool kids are talking about it.
2. Speaking of cool kids, my buddy and former coworker, Rod, got all internet famous last week with his fake script for Indy 4.
3. This is totally ghey, but skip to the 3 minute mark and it’s a least a little amusing.
4. Speaking of … erm… Yeah. Did you guys see the Turkish wrestling spread in ESPN the Magazine? Yeah, neither did I. I hear it’s totally macho, though.
5. More macho is Sasuke — or as it’s called on the G4 network, Ninja Warrior. Holy crap that show is awesome! Makoto Nagano is my hero.
6. I like plurk a lot. The Interface is light years ahead of Twitter. And if you’re into either of those jammies, check out ping.fm — right this second “letmeping” should work as a beta code.

Other stuff of note:

• My darling Ma has teamed up with some cohorts to start a giant dog rescue. We’re talking Danes, Newfies, Mastiffs, Wolfies, and so on. Wow.
• Think I’m gonna ride the motorcycle into work a least a couple days this week. Turn the stress dial back a couple clicks.
• Oh, I am so getting an iPhone 3G in July. OMG!

G’night, kids.

I’ll always remember the first couple HBO shows I saw when I was a kid staying up too late to watch the funny guy cuss and talk about how your house is a place for all your stuff. Very formative stuff for this guy.

In memorium: The seven words.

—

As for me, we have a big push today at work. Assuming it goes reasonably well, I’m going to have a serious period of decompression for the next couple weeks.

Based on the evidence, I haven’t touched a real rock while wearing a climbing harness in this century. In fact I’ve only climbed on the indoor fake stuff the once since I’ve moved to Colorado. Climbing was part of the “why” of moving to Colorado at the time of that decision. Funny how things work out, eh? A large part of it is having people with whom to actually do things. I suppose I didn’t realize how lucky I was to have developed the network of like-minded and tolerable people I had back in Massachusetts. Thanks, gang!

Then there the camping. I unpacked my tent to make sure it hadn’t dissolved completely over the years and found bits of bark and moss from a camping trip I took in New England with Miracle Ed and Hanh something like ten years ago. Good goddamn!

It’s all a bit conflicting, to be honest, because I can’t say I’ve missed it all as much as I would have expected. I’ve found other things to do at times. Mostly I’m just kind of lazy, I think. Or at least I tend to have a lot of inertia when I’m comfortable. That’s a nice way of saying “lazy”…

Also, snakes.

…

Unrelated: Holy crap! I totally watched The Master back in the day!

Meta: I wanted to add my shared items from Google Reader to the new secondary sidebar, but it didn’t work properly. I might keep trying.

Well, I’ve finally got it running at full capacity now that I have a TiVo-HD (got a deal on a refurb from Woot!) and boy is it something.

Of course, the CableCARD install wasn’t perfectly smooth, but at least it turned out to just be a bit of an annoyance while the cable guy fiddled with it for an hour or two. It was definitely not the sort of tragedy I had read about on various TiVo forums, etc.

It’s funny what HD does to you, though. Two words to illustrate my point: Sunrise Earth. My friends (who were all way ahead of me on the HD curve) all told me about this hypnotic show, and I always pointed at them and laughed. Turns out they were right on the money. It’s just mesmerizing. Even beyond that, though, I’ll watch a nature show or rock concert in HD before just about any other option now. Good times.

The Wife’s favorite bit – aside from when I blew her mind by showing her how we can watch shows from our old TiVo unit on the new one – is the dual tuner action we get from the TiVo-HD. Now “Boy shows” don’t automatically trump “Girl shows”. Peace reigns supreme at the Lazy ‘S’ Ranch, though it does give the TiVo twice the opportunity to record one of it’s off the wall suggestions…

• A couple from my tsrly quotes:
  • It’s St. Paddy vs. Jesus this year as the Easter Holy Week overlaps St. Patrick’s Day. Quite a conundrum for the Irish Catholics, eh? Luckily, my personal beer worship won’t be affected.
  • The hairstyles of Japanese women might reflect the state of the Japanese economy. Or it might be a coincidence, but people don’t bother to mention that.
  • Dick Cavett has fond memories of chess genius (and batshit crazy anti-semite) Bobby Fischer
• I’ll admit that it makes me a little nervous to even link to this.
• Parents: praise hard work, not natural ability.
• The Wife’s reaction to this story, which took place about a mile from our house: “Who the heck robs a Hobby Lobby?!”
• Still unsure if your favorite TV show is coming back after the writer’s strike? Here’s the 411.
• The Wife is on a comic kick right now, so here’s a list of 8 comic books to read before you die, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

That is all.

Stay off the crack, crank, smack and whateverelse, Amy. It makes us happy when you can actually stand upright and sing your songs.

Going for my walk/run today in 15 degree (F) temps wasn’t nearly as bad as I was expecting. Until my calf started cramping. That had nothing to do with the cold, though. It was ready to go from the activity earlier in the weekend.

Junk I’ve run across:

• Parkour and free running are – without a doubt – the best thing to happen to action movies since martial arts. This article focuses on one of the American early adopters.
• Last Friday there was news of a car found in bits (along with the three people who were in it) in nearby Louisville. Turns out the car was doing over 100 miles per hour. It also turns out the folks taking the ride were drinking. At least they were “doing what they loved.”
• Leonard Cohen is going on tour after fifteen years off the road. I’m sure he’s past his prime, but I might actually go see him. This live disc is absolutely essential, I don’t care who you are.
• What does it say about me that I think this thing looks like a lot of fun?
• Brozo‘s pal and mine, John Croghan, is playing some shows in the near future. I told him he should play “More Than Words” by perennial Boston favorite, Extreme. He said he’d do it if I actually came to the show. I’m gonna do my best, even though it’s way past my bed time.
• Another buddy, Wil Herren, has taken off to Dubai, where the rate of construction is only outstripped by the importing of sex workers (or so I hear). Wil’s off to a great start on his travel blog, even if he might be misusing the “pages” paradigm. The captions on the pics are gold.
• Brozo has the run down of our send-off for Wil, if you’re interested in a bunch of past-their-prime white boys rolling between dive bars in a limo.
• Oh, yeah… Go Pats!
• So, Clinton won Nevada, but Obama got more delegates? WTF? No wonder people don’t bother…
• I’m reading The Golden Compass right now. It’s actually good fun, IMHO. Not sure if I’m all that interested in the movie, though.
• I grabbed Superbad onto my TiVo via Amazon Unbox, though. That’s bound to be just about perfect for one of these nights when the television dial is utterly devoid of worthwhile entertainment.
• Speaking of, anyone have the early word on Breaking Bad? I’ve got it recorded, but haven’t watched it yet.

• I’m really pleased with the results of my latest slate tile project. Now I’m itching to switch into woodworking mode. I’m super excited about the new episodes of the New Yankee Workshop: Norm is building kitchen cabinets. I plan to eventually build cabinets for the mudroom and perhaps the garage (as practice for the potential “big job” of the actual kitchen). I think I’ll go ahead and buy the DVDs.
• I’m gradually building up my home entertainment system to match the new TV. I’ve gotten a fancy HDMI-switching receiver and a fairly cool iPod dock thingy. Next on my list is a TiVo HD. Then some surround speakers of some sort (I’m still living in stereo, folks…). And then maybe an Xbox 360, finally. (Still holding out for GTA4 on that one.)
• On the fitness front, my weight dipped below 200 pounds for the first time in a while yesterday. It’s back above today, but we’ll assume that’s temporary. I’m going to join a climbing gym soon, I think. A great new motivator I have is the Garmin Forerunner 205 I got for Xmas. It’s not as sexy as the new 405 everyone is drooling over, but it’s pretty darned cool. Of course, now I’m obsessed with tracking the slightest walk / jog / jaunt to the mail box. When The Wife teased me about it I quipped, “Are you kidding? I’m gonna track my trips to the bathroom from now on!”
• Lots of interesting gossip about former coworkers and new coworkers. That’s about all I’ll say about that, I suppose.
• I’m still an Obama cheerleader, though I don’t generally like to air my politics on this site. I like the look of things right now.
• Trent Reznor isn’t exactly excited by the results of the Niggy Tardust experiment.
• TV sucks almighty ass right now. I know there’s a writer’s strike going, but why aren’t networks taking better advantage by replaying some of the good stuff we might have missed previously? Example: AMC’s Mad Men? (Ooh! There’s an encore starting Jan 21. Nice.) At least I always have books to read.

So yeah… What’s new with you?