Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Becks and Posh: My Omnivore's 100.

How the Omnivore's 100 Works:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

4) Optional: Post a comment at Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

68/100 My Omnivore’s Hundred

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile [only alligator]
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari


12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted Cream Tea
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang Souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Friday, August 22, 2008

History's greatest journeys.

Very cool interactive map detailing some of history's greatest journeys, from both real life (Livingstone's travels in Africa, for instance) and fiction (the Pequod from Moby-Dick). Lots of stuff could be added to this, but as it is, it's largely uncluttered and makes for a nice visual.

No zombies. I can't believe it, either.

What to do in a zombie attack.

Oh, go ahead and chortle. Just remember that George Romero didn't stop at one zombie film.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Claymation zombie film.

So it's zombie day. Whatever. Enjoy. This is from BoingBoing.

George Will and paternalism.

First, let me point out that I cannot link to a George Will column without breaking into hives. However, his article in today's Washington Post contains an interesting definition:

"Paternalism is the restriction of freedom for the good of the person restricted."

I'm trying to figure out what my response is to this. The context is the classroom and improving schools, which is the favorite saw of everyone. I approve of paternalism in that context. However, does Will intend the definition to go farther? I believe he does. That's what I'm mulling over.

Watchmen trailer.

For some reason, DashBlog will not post videos to Dilettante's Diary, but is happy to post them to my H.P. Lovecraft blog, where I do critical analysis of HPL's texts. Clearly apropos.

Anyway, I am violently enthusiastic about this film. If Fox in its greed screws things up, I may release the zombies myself.

Tiger Woods 09 - Walk on Water

This is so awesome:



I was a fan of his already, but watching him play through the pain during the 2008 U.S. Open was a huge inspiration for me.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Zombie Survival and Defense Wiki.

This is a pretty cool site. Lots of work has been put into it by what seems to be a fair number of users. (Halloween is still two months away. What is it with the zombie streak lately?) I especially recommend the links to Zombie Defense Posters.

"Remember! When you're killing zombies, always yell: 'DIE YOU GODLESS SONS-OF-BITCHES!' It won't slow them down but it's great for morale!"


Instructional Video: Zombies in Plain English

Most excellent video on surviving the zombiepocalypse.






The passage below gave me ideas for a zombie game:

Let's have a survey - what would your strategy be for surviving the onslaught of the undead in Silver Spring? Here's a few rules & guidelines for this exercise:

* The Zombies you’d be running from are the archetypical slow, plodding undead made famous in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. You wouldn’t have to worry about any of these newfangled sprinting zombies à la 28 Days Later. Sure, it’s easier to avoid the slow ones, but what they lack in speed they make up for in numbers and persistence.

* You would have a brief window of time--let’s say thirty minutes--to gather supplies and reinforce your preferred hideout before downtown is completely overrun by the living dead.

* Your hideout must be located in an area of Silver Spring inside the Beltway, preferably in downtown. In this scenario, the roads are already jammed and you won’t have the ability to reach any SSINO areas.

* The National Guard won’t be coming to the rescue anytime soon, if ever. Be sure you are prepared for the long haul.

Finally, a candidate I can get behind.

I found this in the comments on Wired about what kind of D&D character John McCain would be. The opinions varied, were generally negative, and included a number of liches.

For the people, indeed.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Zombie preparedness.

Its creators intend it to be a shopping list for Burning Man. Fine, whatever. Anyway, below is what the survival team will need. Ignore most of what's listed in the "Suggested Gifts" column on the website.

Tents
tarps
cots, folding chairs
blankets, sleeping pad, inflatable mattress and pump
cooking equipment (little burners, pots, utensils - reusable ones so don't have to deal with trash)
MREs (meals ready to eat)
water
canteens (again, no trash)
reusable coffee cup with lid
camelback
Leatherman / swiss army knife
collapsable shovel
compass
whistle
flashlight and batteries
headlamp
parachutes (to help shade you from sun)
backpacks
duffle bags
small shoulder bags with straps
pouches to attach to belt
bike
First Aid Kit
lip balm
sunscreen
dust mask (for bad dust storms)
gas mask
goggles/ sunglasses
bandannas
umbrella
towels
shorts
cargo pants B DUS(lots of pockets)
t shirts
sweatshirts
scrubs (light and comfortable)
skirts
bathing suits
tank tops
hat
mosquito net vests
"booty camp" shorts
socks
hiking boots/extra laces
sandals
flip flops
sneakers

We roll out at daybreak. No straggling. Mercy kills cheerfully provided.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

UK citizens tracked by public bodies: Jaxtraw's comments.

The title makes sense if you know what Sensible Erection is. Here's the direct link to the SE commentary on the article, which is located here.

Jaxtraw is a frequent, insightful contributor. I especially appreciate this:

"You see, the key thing to understand here is that the people doing this are not evil. Evil people are a known quantity. They amass power and money, and gloat over it. That's a nasty thing, but it's comprehensible and to some degree predictable. When they ride over the horizon you know they're going to kill your women and rape your livestock.

"The people doing this believe they are doing good. That's what makes them so dangerous. They have no specific goal except to do more good, except the good is evil, so there is no respite from them. This is what "progressivism" is, in a nutshell; a burning, unquenchable desire to do more of the same, more effectively, without end. They will never stop.

"There's that famous quote "Evil people do evil, good people do good, but it takes religion to make good people do evil". That's a great quote, but it's wrong, or at least tragically incomplete. What it takes for good people to do evil is belief; passionate belief, and belief in anything will do if it's sufficiently strong. Religion, conservatism, vegetarianism, socialism, racial purity. Whatever.

"These people are a coalition of many cranky beliefs, but the unifying one is a belief in planning. They believe that they can make the world a better place by planning it. They believe that everything wrong with the world is due to a lack of planning. The more planning there is, the better the world will be. One day, everything will to the tiniest detail will be planned, and then the world will be perfect.

"To plan, they need information. Data. And thus, they have a religious belief in the inherent goodness of collecting data. And the more data they collect, the better everything will be, and if something isn't good now, it's because there isn't enough data on it, so it isn't well planned enough. So they can't comprehend why anyone would object to data collection; to object to data collection is to object to making the world a better place, which thus seems to them to be irrational and positively evil. They don't understand arguments about freedom, because freedom doesn't come into plans anywhere. It's not that they're evil people actively trying to destroy freedom; they don't even comprehend what it is because it's in a conceptual hinterland beyond their mental model of the world.

"'Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do', as a famous fictional character once said.

"The thing to remember about good people doing evil is that they are entirely implacable and merciless. You can beg an evil person for mercy; he probably won't grant it, but will at least understand why you're begging. But the good evil doer cannot comprehend why any mercy would be required- how can a person need merciful deliverance from good? So mercy there will never be."

Plushie: Kali, Goddess of Death


I am one sick fuck for loving this. The fact that the seamstress's last name is "Butcher" is not lost on me, either.

I started following @SFZombieMob on Twitter this morning. I am all about lowbrow, burlesque, Disney's Haunted Mansion, tiki culture, the lot. Then again, I also started following @CassiniSaturn. I am all about careful, reasoned investigation, too, and the scientific method. How do these things go together? Beats the hell out of me.


Tuesday, August 12, 2008

ESL and Bloom's revised taxonomy.

I'm not teaching at the moment, but this is an especially good article from Hall, who writes fine articles in general.

LOTS
• remembering
• understanding
• applying
• analysing
• evaluating
• creating
HOTS

Wednesday, August 06, 2008

PDF on the mind-brain problem.

Still reading this; it's quite good so far. Clear, lucid description of this essential problem.

"The real war today is between dogmatic materialists and anybody else. Within the belief system of the former, all that exists is material and the relationships between it. Part of that belief system is also heavily vested in the descendant of Aristotelian logic - the logic of classes - and in the "hierarchy" implicit in it.

"Dogmatic materialism has an admittedly long and very successful history in science. In fact, it is a spectacularly successful history. It has actually produced the miracles that religion once promised. Democritus' descendants seem to have won the field. But there are gaps in their line. Most of modern physics -the part of physics which is modern - just doesn't fit."

Sunday, August 03, 2008

GDP: A Few Pictures Are Worth a Book

Interesting article in The Atlantic. Not sure how long it'll stay up. It's a set of GDP maps plus one growth map, plus some great observations by the blog author.

Saturday, August 02, 2008