Boy, being on Facebook means never having to say, "No one remembered my birthday," I tell you what. Took the afternoon off to goof off a bit, try paint-your-own pottery for the first time, and take afternoon tea with a few friends. Got flowers from Hal and had steak for dinner. A lovely day. This weekend I'll make a pilgrimage to Kirkland to get a slice of proper birthday cake -- it's not a birthday unless there's green marzipan on the cake -- and eventually I'll use the Groupon for glassblowing a flower, glassblowing being something else I've never tried and long wanted to. As I embark on my second half-century, I figure trying something new for each birthday is a reasonable ambition for keeping things fresh and forward-looking. I've got a whole year to get my nut up for indoor sky diving next year...

Today a DUFF race for the Australian NatCon, Continuum VIII, June 8-11, has been announced. I concluded that it was too late to run a DUFF race for this year’s ANZAC NatCons back in mid-April when the topic came up on the fan fund administrators’ list. I said as much then. In the intervening two weeks the prospect of equitably and successfully running a race to send a North American to one or both antipodean national conventions has moved from being merely not viable to somewhere between ‘unforgivably foolhardy’ and ‘hyperbole fails me’. Or, as I said in my comment on the race announcement in File 770, golly I think this is an outstandingly bad idea. What follows is a refinement of my comments there.

( more after the fig leafage )

I recently had occasion to try googling the breed mixture we suspect Kaylee of: Labrador / Pharaoh hound. I found some other dogs claiming the mix, at least one verified by genetic testing, and someone has even come up with a silly crossbreed name for them: phabradors. They're a pretty damn' good looking cross, I think, and some of these dogs look so much like Kaylee that it's downright spooky. I created a Flickr gallery in case anyone would like to see some of the others.

One of the things that's most engaging about andrewducker's polls is that they so reliably afford the keen player of false dilemma bingo the opportunity to play along. It's always fun to see how many instances of the excluded middle fallacy he can pack into one post.

This morning we discover that in Britain, IKEA stores don't have shortcuts, unlike IKEA stores everywhere else, apparently. Or, you know, not.

So dinner was particularly nice today, and I was especially pleased with my experimental variant on the Asian-style dressed salad:

1/2 Small white cabbage chopped small
1/4 of a sweet onion, ditto
1/3 bunch cilantro, ditto

Tossed together thoroughly, and dressed with a mixture of sesame oil (both regular and toasted), rice vinegar, minced garlic (jar kind will do, but lots of it), soy sauce, and tiny bit of sugar, all whisked together. Poured over the greens and tossed again with a goodly blessing of sesame seeds on top and allowed to marinate together while I made the schnitzels.

I was also pleased to discover that for pounding out the pork, a rolling pin works just fine in lieu of a meat tenderizer, which I don't have and don't want to waste precious drawer space storing anyway.

The cool tang and crunchy complexity of the salad made a really nice counterpoint to the fresh, crisp-coated meatiness of schnitzels. Panko breadcrumbs work a treat for the second dredge. Must do this again some time.

While this morning I realized that physics still works. I came to my desk to find my teacup from the day before standing in a pool of tea. Yes, I had left most of a cup of tea sitting overnight, but the cup is newish, and not cracked, so why the puddle? Well, the cup also still had the tea bag in it (this is what happens when I fetch myself a fresh cup at 4:30 in the afternoon, when the tea barely has time to cool to drinking temperatures before it's time to leave work), and perhaps most significantly, the paper tag was off the end of the tea bag string. Overnight, wicking had done its mysterious magic, pulling tea up out of the cup and over the rim to where it could then freely drip down the side. Presumably this doesn't normally happen because I don't leave nearly so much tea sitting untouched overnight.

And also this morning, on the way to the train, I spotted the first clutch of baby ducks of the season down on the creek. For a while now all the visible ducks have been a group of bachelor drakes, so I figured the paired ducks were off doing what mated pairs do, and now we have confirmation. They're just ordinary mallards, though the duck of the parent pair was some sort of hybrid, since she had a very dark head and a white blaze in the middle of her breast. And of course the babies are, inevitably, charming. I do really love my little walk through the neighborhood down to the train. Now that it's light again especially, there's always something interesting to see.

poliphilo has posted a things-to-do-before-you-X bucket list that I found charming and different from the usual run of the meme. It's the British National Trust's list of 50 Things To Do Before You're 11 3/4. His post and our subsequent conversation about it has got me thinking about the nature of a Swedish childhood, or at least mine, and how it ties into the idylls of the Moomin books, and my own ideas of what a childhood should be like, and the weirdness of grokking nostalgia when you are six years old, and I hope to get on with writing that all up, soon, but in the mean time, you can go there and tot up your own points against the National Trust's ideal of preadolescence. It's fun.

If you lived in Portland, you could go to Zombie Survival or First Responder Camp. Iz jelluz.

Surely there are enough actual incidences of women getting harassed and threatened online without whingeing about invented hypothetical ones? No one actually knows what would have happened if a woman had gone off like Chris Priest. They are guessing, asserting observer bias as fact. Or, to put it another way, if making caustic, abrasive, emphatic, hyperbolic rhetorical flourishes online without being subjected to rape threats or similar harassment is an Exclusively Male Privilege, then people, I am a man.

And speaking of surprising gender discoveries, has James Nicoll commented on the gender balance in the Hugo fiction short list this year, or is it only noteworthy when it *isn't* balanced?

It can only end in tears.

Well, it's Easter Sunday, it's The Day After Vanguard, and I hear rumors there's some sort of science fiction convention nearby that some people may be attending, but most important of all, it's Second Sunday, and that means it's time to celebrate whatever spring ritual suits your fancy by getting together with a bunch of fans and drinking beer together. What could be more festive than that? Out of towners in for Norwescon are welcome, and any other like-minded folk you might want to bring along. But fair warning, I will be surly if I find Peeps in my IPA. (There are those who say I will be surly anyway.) I just called the pub to check, and they will indeed be open this Sunday, so put away those passover matzot and come party like beer has nothing to do with grain and yeast, living in sin.

What: Seattle Second Sunday Pub Meet
Where: The Pig N Whistle, Greenwood
8412 Greenwood Ave N
Seattle, WA 98103
Pub: (206) 782-6044
When: Sunday, April 8
4:00 pm - 6:30 pm or later

Apparently xkcd is channelling my inner glutton.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/cadbury_eggs.png

God knows, I am not normally the most sensitive soul ever, and I think Lionel Richie has every right in the world to cut a Country album and name it whatever he wants, but I must tell you that when I see photo of a black man sitting on a porch (tipped back on his chair, in a wide-kneed posture that could certainly be interpreted as a bit sexualized) with the word "Tuskeegee" superimposed over the image, my first thought is not of music.

Maybe this is a subversive move to reclaim something or other, but I can't help thinking it might just have been poorly thought through.

Elevated from a comment elsewhere, and something I've probably said before, but:

As a recovering Libertarian, I have noticed that the "at gunpoint" language that Libertarians so often use whenever describing government action is remarkably silly and overblown rhetoric in practice. Compliance with, for instance, traffic regulations and tax law has essentially nothing to do with fear of violent reprisal from government. Most people's relationship with their employers -- a supposedly freely entered contract -- is more effectively coercive than the government's nominal monopoly on legal force. Employers wield the specter of unemployment, penury, homelessness, and starvation, which are threats that are much more immediate and realistic than a government agent coming to your house and shooting you for failing to pay your taxes.

( Photo-heavy post in which I blather mostly about sunlight and such )

I periodically think about making my own kanelbullar -- Swedish cinnamon rolls -- and generally hang up on Step 1: Make a batch of yeast dough. Yeast dough. Botheration. Especially since every time I think of it, all the viable yeast has been used up in the bread machine, and what's left is a year or two out of date. Dead yeasty-beasties. [Is sad.]

But thanks to some clever dick at The Kitchn, I have finally made some. The secret weapon? Pre-made Trader Joe's pizza dough. Roll it out thin (dang this is way more work than I remembered), butter it, fold it in quarters, roll it out again, butter it, fold it in quarters again, roll it out, butter it, sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon, and, if feeling fancy, raisins or ground nuts, roll up into a long roll, slice longitudinally, and place the slices in cupcake papers, brush with egg-white and sprinkle with pearl sugar, then bake. Easy peasy, and not at all bad, though next time I'll let the dough warm up longer and sit longer to rise. This first batch was a bit compact.
( More Photos Beneath the Cut, Just 'Cause )

Anyone else having trouble connecting to Flickr? If so, any idea what's up?

ETA: - The site seems to be back for me now, though some functions are definitely not happy, but at least they're back. Thanks to those who responded.

Last night's stir fried chicken chow mein not at all bad. Reheated for lunch today it was a good deal better than that. I'm still boggled by how much soy sauce, oyster sauce, and Maggi a stir fry can soak up. Still, for reference:

Chicken Chow Mein

1 Package dry chow mein noodles -- cooked per directions
1 medium onion -- chopped medium
1/2 small head of cabbage -- chopped fine
3 stalks celery -- chopped medium fine
1 cooked chicken breast - cubed small

1 large wodge chopped basil
1/3 bunch chopped cilantro
3-4 green onions, chopped
6 cloves garlic, crushed then chopped

sesame oil
soy sauce
oyster sauce
Maggi sauce
rice vinegar

Big slopping sploosh of sesame oil -- my electric wok seems to take way more than any of my recipes call for -- and set wok to high to heat. Add cabbage, celery, and onion and stir until starting to wilt. Add cooked noodles -- if you let these sit for any amount of time after you drain them before you add them to the stir-fry they'll have turned into a single glutenous wodge of colander-shaped noodle timbale, so it's a good idea to break it up by hand as you add the noodles to the stir fry or you get a big lump of noodles sitting in the middle of a sea of frying vegetables. After the noodles and veg are well mixed, add the chicken, and last the aromatics. When things are looking nearly done, add more than you think remotely plausible of each of your liquids, stir, cover, and take the wok off the heat to percolate for a few minutes.

Next time: no matter how insanely too much it looks before it's fried down, use a whole head of cabbage and another 2-3 stalks of celery. More onion would not have gone amiss either, and bean sprouts if I'm planning ahead.

Move over, LOL cats, make room for LOL weasels. Read the True Origin tale of Juanita Weasel. Then buy the apron.

Victor: Where in the hell are you even going to put it? We’ve run out of room for your weird antique taxidermy. This is something I never thought I’d have to say to my wife.

[SFX: In the voice Dug the Dog]: These are my dogs. They are G-O-O-O-O-D dogs, oh yes they are.

I've put up a small Flickr set of images from the Great White Power Failure. Nothing photographically brilliant, but it's what I got.

Speaking of photos, or rather the lack of same, I keep meaning to get a picture of the new sign at a local truck sales place that has also, for reasons that presumably make sense to someone, opened a small gun shop sales counter on the premises. Reason for wanting a photo: the name. It's the Rivendell Gun Shop. All. Kinds. of. WRONG.