Category: uncategorized

Right back at ya, Greg (12 June 2003, “Meta”). We bloggers have to stick together. Once the Googlebots smell fear, you’re done fer. Heh.

Time for me to show my people some pride. In 1898, with the United States winning the Spanish-American War, Philippine rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo declared the Philippines independent on June 12, now recognized as Independence Day. (Of course, let’s not forget that the Philippines was swiftly made a U.S. colony for the next fifty-some years and finally granted “true” independence on July 4, 1946. I won’t delve into Philippine-American relations here, but there’s much to be said on all sides of the debate.) Anyway, local events include a parade and fair this Sunday on Pennsylvania Avenue. I might check it out–it’s been a while since I’ve had some good Filipino food. Mmm.

Mabuhay!

I am so with the Chron‘s Jon Carroll (see “I Ain’t Doing That No More“). For the sake of civility, I like to keep to a minimum any arguing over the restaurant check. If the other person offers to pay, I usually counter with one obligatory, though sincere “oh no, let me” or “let’s at least split it,” but if they insist even after I’ve gone through the drill, that’s the end of it. Mr. Chairman, I yield the bill to the distinguished gentleman with the open pocketbook. An excerpt:

I am tired of people getting rancorous because they have not been allowed to pay the tab. Look, baby, I’m on your side. You want to pay the tab, and I want you to pay the tab. You will get no arguments from me. We are united in our fervent wish to dip into your checking account.

This is fair warning. If you think it’s my turn to pay, let me pay. I am happy to pay. Paying is the very manna of life to me. But I assume it is also the manna of life to you, and I refuse to deprive you of the karmic value of generosity. Got it? Swell.

It’s much like the art of accepting compliments graciously. I don’t argue.

Speaking of pet peeves, Jason Kottke hits on another one: magazine inserts. When I get my magazines in the mail, the first thing I do is mercilessly tear out and discard all the subscription cards and special heavy-paper ads–though I tend to reprieve the ads for Broadway shows, which sometimes appear in the New Yorker, my justification being that they add local character to the issue. Otherwise, such “pop-up ads” only serve to impede my smooth perusal of the articles.

Jason brings this up in reference to David Sedaris’ “Our Perfect Summer” (also known as “The Ship Shape”), which I heard him read in D.C. earlier this year. Delicious phrase from the story: “My home, well, one of my homes…” Good stuff.

Good lord. The latest “WTF?” Google search referring to Rebel Prince is this. Cheeky monkey, whoever you are. (Should I really be posting this from my office computer?) Go to the cached version (it’s from my Blogger days, and doesn’t exist in MT form yet) to confirm that, of course, I have no such pictures. Nor does the only other site listed, Swish Cottage–an interesting blog by a gay Brit, whose site I remember coming across a long while back, and thinking, hey, cool domain name.

P.S. Speaking of cached pages, I recently added some code so Google doesn’t archive the site. (But as you see above, it still has older pages.) If you arrive here through a search, and a cached version isn’t available, use the internal search in the sidebar. I know it’s not perfect and isn’t as easy as having Google highlight instances of your search terms, but somehow I feel better about not having Google keep a version of my pages, you know?

On Faking It, a program airing here on BBC America, the show’s producers quickly and thoroughly train a contestant for a new job—not totally unrelated, but usually more demanding than their current occupation—and then the person attempts to fool the experts in that field with their new skills, hence the title. Last week was a ballet dancer turned wrestler. Really interesting episode this week, I thought. They took a mild-mannered (and I daresay adorable) fast-food vendor and whipped him into a no-nonsense master chef. An acting coach was even called in to give him the right amount of swagger and bravado to lead a brigade of restaurant cooks. By the end of the episode, when he impressed the judges in a cooking competition, I was quite proud of him. And a little inspired.

Now I kind of want to take a culinary crash course of my own. On the web I found a promising school called L’Academie de Cuisine, which gives recreational cooking classes at its Bethesda location (and runs professional programs in Gaithersburg). Perhaps “Primary Skills Bootcamp” is what I need to get in shape?

Speaking of food, I haven’t abandoned my weekly experiments just yet. The weekend before last, I cooked up Jacques Pépin’s recipe for cheese fondue. I’m not exactly qualified to judge, but I didn’t really like the way it turned out. In the book, M. Pépin acknowledges that it’s made with the minimum of ingredients, resulting in an uneven consistency–the melted Swiss cheese sinks to the bottom of the pot, separating from the wine sauce. You sort of have to dredge around to coat your piece of bread with both parts of the fondue. It tasted great, but I’m used to a more traditional, consistently creamy texture.

Look at me, it’s a Saturday and I’ve been up since 6:30 a.m. For no good reason, really. When I got home last night around 8, I was so tired that I decided to take a nap, which I knew deep down was going to turn into full-fledged sleep.

But to rewind a bit, after work yesterday I stopped at the Olsson’s at Dupont Circle. I picked up Sherman Alexie’s new short-story collection, Ten Little Indians, and bought tickets to his book discussion/signing event, which takes place Tuesday, June 17 at the National Press Club. If I were to make a Rebel Prince required reading list–not a bad idea, the more I think about it–he’d definitely be on it.

While at Olsson’s I also bought the following (I’m such a sucker for good, bargain books):

• How To Read and Why, Harold Bloom
• Flaubert-Sand: The Correspondence of Gustave Flaubert and George Sand, ed. Alphonse Jacobs, trans. Francis Steegmuller and Barbara Bray
• The Queen’s Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire, Wayne Kostenbaum
• Martin Bauman; or, A Sure Thing, David Leavitt

Ugh. It’s raining like mad outside. Hm, what to do. Read, I guess. Which reminds me of a news item that Rajani forwarded to me recently: might Reading Rainbow finally fade? Say it ain’t so.

Finally, this weekend This American Life airs excerpts from its recent five-city tour, which I caught here in D.C. last month. Tune in on your local public radio station (for you locals, today at 3 p.m. on WAMU 88.5 FM). Good stuff.

Well, given my odd size—I’m short; there, I’ve said it—it’s more like, if anything fits, buy it. Anyway.

Remember those shoes I bought yesterday? I wore the dark brown ones to work today. Or more accurately, I wore a pair of old sneakers on the way to work, and changed into the new shoes once I got to my office. How Working Girl is that? It’s not that they’re uncomfortable. They’re just so beautifully new and pristine (“not even creased,” Danielle noted), I figure I might as well take extra good care of them. For now, at least. Okay, time to give them a good polishing. Oh, dear. What’s next, shoe trees?

Ah, that’s what I need in my office: a full-on wardrobe and changing room, not to mention a bar, à la Catcher Block in Down with Love. (Go see this movie already!)

I’m seeing Tori Amos and Ben Folds in August! Woo! Tickets went on sale today at noon, and co-workers Tina, Danielle, and I each logged on to Ticketmaster at our computers to maximize our chances for good seats. An efficient use of lunch time, to be sure. The order in which Ticketmaster alloted the seats was practically random, but Danielle had the best luck among us three, scoring us seats up close and to the side. Rock on.

Speaking of summer music, Rufus Wainwright will be playing a couple of New York shows at the end of June: Saturday, June 28 in Celebrate Brooklyn‘s Leonard Cohen tribute; and Sunday, June 29 in a Canada Day concert at Central Park Summerstage. Grr. I was planning to fly home to California that weekend, but hm. I’ll toy with the idea of pushing it back a couple of days. I’m sure my parents will be less than thrilled: “What, you’re putting us on hold for Rufus? Again?” Ha.

Update: FYI, I was remiss in forgetting to mention that Rufus will be opening for Aimee Mann, Thursday, July 24 at UCLA Royce Hall, as part of the Verizon Music Festival.