Roseanne Barr will be starring in her very own cooking show on ABC Family in September. Yes, that Roseanne Barr. On a cooking show. But not is all as it seems, for the cooking show seems to be a clever ruse of an excuse for the creation of yet another celebrity reality series, "The Real Roseanne," which will take viewers along on the creation of her cooking show, titled "Domestic Goddess." The New York Times points out that Roseanne clearly knows (or knows to hope) which show will be paying the bills. Thus the participants and publicity for "Domestic Goddess" serve primarily to further the goals of "The Real Roseanne," namely inciting conflict and encouraging beepable dialogue.
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The ambitious and highly visible replacement of the east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge has an accompanying website run by the California Alliance for Jobs. The site pulls together information about the companies and unions involved in the project and pays special attention to individual contributers on the project. The current east span was built in the 1930s with the piers standing on wooden timbers. You may remember that a section of the upper deck collapsed during the 1989 earthquake. It was determined that a complete replacement, at $2.6 billion, would be more feasible than a retrofit. The new bridge is designed to withstand a quake measuring 8.1 to 8.2 on the Richter scale. (via larkfarm)
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Tuesday, July 29, 2003

It's very nice of the Blue Angels to come out and welcome us to Seattle.
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Moving Notes

Just because your new house has a separate laundry room, it doesn't mean that your old washer and dryer will fit.

Never assume that your washer and dryer are the same size. Measure both.

The day after you move, your new local paper will run a special Travel section all about your old city.

Disposable toilet seat covers in public restrooms seem to be a right in California and a luxury everywhere else.

Despite a propensity for sitting in warm sunbeams, a cat will prefer that you turn on the air conditioning in the car.

If a store carries "baby lemons" you probably don't want to see the price of their Eurekas.

Just because your new kitchen is bigger, it doesn't necessarily mean your old refrigerator will fit.

Never leave your cat alone in the bathroom with a lifetime supply of catnip "safely" tucked into a plastic bag.
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Sunday, July 27, 2003

We have arrived safely in Washington State and moved into our new home. Thank you to everyone who sent along their good wishes. Unfortunately, we do not have phone, broadband, or cable service yet although all were ordered. A Qwest representative claimed that the PUC did not allow them to turn on phone service on a Saturday (huh?) and Comcast had to be persuaded to come out within seven days (at least they were willing to do a weekend). But we have plenty to keep us occupied with boxes to unpack and furniture to arrange, rearrange.

As a treat we sought out and visited Costco Home today. I wrote about it a while ago; it is the home furnishings store which has thousands of pieces ready to be taken home, giving it a leg up over the ordering wait time at typical furniture stores. Unfortunately most of the items were, to put it politely, not to my taste (who knew the classic essence of the Adirondack chair could be so easily ruined?). But the test store has been doing well enough that Costco has is planning to open another one on the west coast. Plans for a Costco Fresh grocery superstore have been shelved.
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Monday, July 21, 2003

I'm taking a break from posting for a week as we prepare for and make our big move to the Seattle, Washington area. I've prepared a move FAQ that goes into more detail about this major event. I hope to resume posting on July 28th.
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Friday, July 18, 2003

In Pattani, Thailand, the real estate market is being dominated by investors looking to attract swifts. These tiny birds are being welcomed into unused upper stories, empty basements, and roofs. Their abandoned nests are harvested by building owners for a tidy profit at $1,000 a pound. Soaked, cleaned, and cooked, the nests are the basis for the famous delicacy, bird's nest soup. Building owners use various tactics, such as recorded birdsongs, to try to entice swifts to nest within their walls.
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Although glass bottles are regularly recycled, there is plenty of plate glass from demolitions and renovations which ends up as landfill. There are some uses for recycled plate glass, which is often collected from old windows, but as there is not a regular supply, unlike bottles which are discarded every second, a recycling program is more difficult to manage. At the Palo Alto Clay & Glass Festival a few years ago, I discovered the work of Lauren Becker who creates practical art glass, dishes and bowls, out of old plate glass. I own one of her multi-spiral bowls. This year I purchased two "whirlwind" plates, one in a dark glass which she told us came from the windows of the old Birkenstock factory. She's now also sells dishes made out of traffic light glass, decommissioned in the switch to LED lights. I am thrilled to see art that is functional, reduces waste, and is beautiful even without the environmental twist.
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Thursday, July 17, 2003

The L.A. Times takes a look at the continuing fascination with fountain pens. Although I would not turn down a custom-crafted, perfectly weighted fountain pen, I'll admit that I'd be better served with a custom-made keyboard and trackball set perfectly molded for my hands.
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From the depths of my referrer logs comes Citrus Moon's lovely tile-a-day site. Not only are there beautiful (and free) tiles for your wallpapering or background needs, but each set is accompanied by descriptive text about its origins and inspiration, often with links to other interesting design sites.
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The wonderful thing about the Blogathon is that it is a fundraising endeavor where the very activity that raises money for a cause can call attention to and educate people about the cause. I've always had a cynical attitude towards events like charity balls where thousands of dollars are wasted on dresses, limos, and food that could have gone straight to the charitable cause's coffers instead, though I understand that the fancy trappings are often necessary to raise large sums of money. But with Blogathon there's an opportunity, if the weblog author chooses, to directly raise awareness about the charity they are collecting donations for. I was honored to have been asked to help judge the awards this year.
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Wednesday, July 16, 2003

The 2003 Bulwer-Lytton (aka "dark and stormy night") contest results are in, and the winning entry effectively exhibits America's burgeoning penchant for foodie writing. No, really, it does.
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According to the Piano Technicians Guild, there are 10,000 tuners for America's 18 million pianos. And half of them now use a computer and software such as CyberTuner to adjust strings to the correct pitch. There's ongoing debate in the tuner community over which method is more effective. Some even say that electronic tuners should be used to save the ear for more fine adjustments. With an electronic tuner and little training, maybe anyone could become a piano tuner, but there's still the need for experience and learning how and when to make fine adjustments.
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Tuesday, July 15, 2003

It's rough being part of a major target market. I think I got through the first three decades of my shopping life without mishap, but now that I have disposable income the marketing powers have carefully researched my nostalgic triggers and put them to use. At the new DSW Shoe Warehouse in San Jose, their plethora of shoes and sizes were all conveniently lined up for me to try on at my own browsing speed, just like when I was little and my mom would take me to Shoe Town in Norwalk, Connecticut. And every time I thought that maybe I had had enough of the rows and rows of fashionably cute shoes, another eighties-era song that I hadn't heard in many years would come on over the sound system and I'd have to stay and listen to it. And try on another pair of sandals. I came out with remarkably little damage, thanks to the discounted clearance racks and my disinclination towards trends.
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The official opening date for the long-contested East Palo Alto Ikea has been set and officials are gearing up for the traffic jams. With a prime Highway 101 location the shiny new blue store will likely snarl peninsula traffic in a wide radius. It is also near the Dumbarton Bridge, which spans the bay to Fremont. Opening day is a Wednesday, August 27th and there's a Labor Day long weekend's worth of cheap, fun-to-pronounce home improvement acquisition immediately following. Take alternate routes.
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Monday, July 14, 2003

Our Bosch dishwasher, which is wonderfully quiet and always cleans the dishes without pre-rinsing, did have one problem. A cycle seemed to take hours and hours. Disturbed by the possible waste of electricity, I plowed through Google looking for an answer, and found it on Usenet. My husband soldered the bad relay connection and now the dishwasher runs great. Since then, I have run into many people who have Bosch dishwashers with the exact same problem. They are always thrilled to hear about the easy (this being Silicon Valley, usually one or both spouses knows how to solder) solution. I almost wish that every time I meet someone new or enter new group situations I could say "Hi! Anyone here have a Bosch dishwasher with a terribly long cycle?" Instead, I'm writing about it here so there will be more search engine visibility than a buried Usenet posting. Note: if you do take yours apart, take a photo of the control panel first; it'll be easier to put it back together. And the part you need to solder should be easy to spot; it'll be fried to a lovely dark hue.
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I read so voraciously as a child that I was rather stunned when just a couple years ago my husband handed me "I Capture the Castle" by Dodie Smith and I realized I had never seen it before. With an enticing title like that and my sharp-eyed shelf browsing tactics, how could i have missed it? I've decided that my hometown library must not have had a copy, and indeed the sole copy they now have is a 1999 printing which lends some small credence to my theory. Now that I am fully acquainted with the lovely tale of Cassandra Mortmain and her family, the BBC has finally translated it to the silver screen. "Buffy the Vampire" fans will take note that Marc Blucas is appearing as Neil Cotton. "E.T." star Henry Thomas is Simon.
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Friday, July 11, 2003

FingerWorks is pioneering "MultiTouch" keyboards. Their smooth surface input devices use a small electromagnetic field to sense hand and finger movements. Along with key input, there is a large vocabulary of gestures that can be used for everything from file editing and image manipulation to gaming. The aim is to create a natural, relaxing, and therefore ergonomic input environment. No force is necessary and the hand position gestures use less effort than writing out a symbolic gesture. It seems magical, but until I try one myself I can't be an effective judge.
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The fast growing market for artisanal foods brings the artisan producers up against a conundrum. How can they satisfy demand while maintaining the quality that is bringing all the business to their often small operations? Some producers are bringing in hi-tech to help out. Andalusian pig farmers are curing Iberico and Serrano ham year-round in aging rooms with climates carefully controlled by computers. Purists may wish to seek out hams that are cured the old-fashioned way for three years in mountain caves. Hi-tech "caves" are also being used for cheese production at the Artisanal Cheese Center in New York. In France, a continuous olive press is shortening olive oil production time, resulting in better quality and more quantity.
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Thursday, July 10, 2003

The Guardian asks top British chefs what kitchen gadget they couldn't live without. There's not one microplane grater in the bunch, though one is in Delia Smith's list of essentials available for sale. I have to agree with Ken Hom's must-have item; a Chinese cleaver is my indispensible kitchen tool. One chef picks his liquidiser, which is British for "blender."
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If, like me, you came to "West Wing" late and have been lamenting the lack of Region 1 DVDs for earlier episodes, some consolation is on the horizon. Bravo has announced their schedule for West Wing reruns. Their exclusive rights to run the earlier episodes is the reason for the lack of series DVDs. There's ample opportunity to catch their broadcasts which will run Monday through Thursday, same episode three times a day, with those four episodes repeated every Sunday afternoon. It all begins with a big premiere weekend August 7-10.
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Wednesday, July 09, 2003

The FDA is expected to announce a ruling on trans fat labeling today. Food manufacturers will have to add the trans fat content of their products alongside the saturated fat listings. Soon I will no longer have to scan ingredient lists for that dreaded word: "hydrogenated."
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SpeedPass is now coming to your wristwatch. The same technology that saves EZ Pass drivers time at tolls is now available in a convenient Timex format. And, what a relief, unlike other technology-enabled watches, these Timex models are not ugly and cumbersome. ExxonMobil originally offered SpeedPass payment devices as a little black wand that you could place on your keychain. With no identification process attached to it, SpeedPass may be doomed to small ticket items, but the system does allow for PINs, signatures, and transaction limits. RFID may be all you need for cash one day. (via Gizmodo) Bonus link: The Timexpo Museum, in my home state of Connecticut, "tells the story of Timex and its heritage dating back to the 1850's."
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Tuesday, July 08, 2003

Each year, the National Conducting Institute selects a small group of promising young conductors to attend a three week session which includes rehearsals with the National Symphony Orchestra. Founded by music director Leonard Slatkin, the program gives unseasoned, but professional level conductors the chance to work with a professional orchestra of high caliber. They attend workshops, receive feedback from the musicians, and a lucky few conduct the NSO in the culminating concert.
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Corporate Anthems was the subject of a segment on NPR's "On the Media" this past weekend; I believe it was a rebroadcast of this segment from 2001. I linked to the IBM Songbook a while back. Now "On the Media" has revealed to me the wonder of Industrial Musicals. Way back when, Broadway veterans were hired to create glamorous theatrical events for sales meetings and executive gatherings. Often a recorded album was presented to attendees so they could relive the songs over again in the comfort of their homes, or perhaps play them at office morale events. Through these recordings, we can relive such garish wonders as the songs from the American Standard musical entitled "The Bathrooms Are Coming" which included the lyrics "My bathroom, my bathroom is a private kind of place."
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Monday, July 07, 2003

The classical music equivalent of opera supertitles and museum audioguides, the Concert Companion navigates audience members through a symphony performance. Created by Roland Valliere with software developed by Kinoma and Tribeworks, the PDA-based system receives information via wireless during the performance. Text that is typically contained in program notes, such as background information about the piece, composer biographies, and motifs to listen for appears on command from a technician using a laptop at the back of the hall. One could imagine that the light from the displays would be distracting to others in the audience. Response from test groups has been positive, though there are likely to be discouraging sniffs from the purists. As with supertitles, if this device can attract bigger audiences, it may be a necessary evolution in symphony performance.
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National Public Radio's most popular hour, Car Talk, is broadcast at different times throughout the country, seemingly impossible for a live call-in show. And yet, every week, Click and Clack are urging their audience to "call us at 1-888-CARTALK." But when is the show actually taped? How do people from all over the country manage to call in at the right time? What about that guy that called in from an undisclosed armed services location? Well, sorry to shatter any illusions, but the show is not, strictly speaking, a live call-in show. It's a taped call-out show. Callers to the toll-free number are instructed to leave their information and someone from the staff calls back prospects with promising personalities. The callers are auditioned by producers and ones that make the cut are called during the Friday taping to be put through to Tom and Ray Magliozzi. However, the brothers aren't given information about their callers beforehand, so it isn't a canned or scripted interaction. About 20-30 percent of the calls don't make it into the final show.
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Thursday, July 03, 2003

The Bees Knees is a nostalgic resource for restaurant and diner china collectibles. If you've been yearning to outfit your kitchen with chunky thick diner plates, this is the place to start. They even have a list of mystery items that they'd like to match to the restaurants of origin. For china from steamships, railroads, and airlines, take a look through the offerings at Cabin Class Collectibles. They even have a couple nice pieces of Royal Doulton from British Airways.
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Despite hectic schedules, we managed to catch the documentary film Winged Migration. This remarkable movie gets dreadfully close to countless numbers of birds as they proceed through their yearly cycle of north and south migration. When I watched Sesame Street as a child, I would always get bored when they had the wild animal segments. If they had been as compelling as this, perhaps I would have become more involved with the beauty of the nature surrounding us.
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Wednesday, July 02, 2003

Kraft Foods Inc. has announced "global initiatives to help address rise in obesity." But there are no concrete changes they can point to yet, except for plans to reduce the portion sizes of single-serve packs (and, I have to wonder, keep the same prices?) and halt in-school marketing (again, cost savings). The NY Times reports that Kraft is developing Oreos without trans-fats, so perhaps there will be significant changes to come in the actual content of the foods.
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Children's author Robert McCloskey died on Sunday. He was 88. Earlier this year students from Dean S. Luce Elementary School in Canton, MA succeeded in a four year quest to pass legislation naming McCloskey's ''Make Way For Ducklings'' the official state children's book and Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) the official children's author and illustrator of the Commonwealth. Sally McCloskey, daughter of the author, thanked the children in a celebration at the State House on June 23rd. The addition of Geisel to the bill resulted from a compromise with the representative from Springfield, Geisel's hometown.
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Tuesday, July 01, 2003

David Bowie is embarking on a large-scale (17 countries, 7 months) tour this year with dates already announced for Europe. He is expected to perform in the U.S. before the end of the year and a new album is forthcoming as well.
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A used bookstore owner found a signed Ralph Waldo Emerson book and a kitten at a yard sale. She purchased both. The Emerson signature has a doodle of a cat next to it. The kitten has been named Emerson.
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