December 2008 Archives

thought I'd spend my free time converting my blog from blogger to Movable Type. Why?
No reason. Just figured it'd be fun.
I am an idiot.
[update]
actually, that wasn't so bad. And i think that this will make it a lot easier to do some cool stuff, like posting nurblecasts to the sidebar and working with images. Or it will help me to continue my anemic posting pace. Whichever.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

Somehow I got roped into making a family photo album for the girlfriend, so now I'm spending a lovely Christmas evening in bed with a pair of laptops learning Movable Type on the fly and trying to figure out why we can't just use flickr like everybody else.

Oh, and if you've never tried to upload data at a respectable speed from a Marriott outside Orlando, don't. I'm getting about 100k/s, which is only slightly faster than writing it on a napkin and mailing it to the hosting provider.

Just came back from a dinner party at which I served an objectively awesome tray of Mac 'n' Cheese. I have to say, and this is not ego talking, I did everything right, starting with lowering expectations by announcing weeks ago that I don't really cook, which is technically true, but ignores the fact that when I do decide to make my own food, I tend to go for broke. I don't re-heat. I don't do frozen or powdered. I cook as if Tom Colicchio will be judging not just the result, but the process.

That's not to say that I cook well, I don't. Fuckups are frequent, and this is why I solicited advice, scoured the internet, and actually practiced the recipe earlier in the week before deploying it on my friends.

Most of the recipe is from this site, helpfully titled "the Worlds Best Mac and Cheese". I like it not just because it's based on a recipe from James Beard, or because it involves a roux, which I'd never done before but might be the secret to deliciousness in all things, but because it's by someone named Patrick Fitzgerald, and I can pretend that in between indicting Scooter Libby and Rob Blagojevich, Fitz took a moment to do some chefery.

Interesting. Oil is back down to $45 a barrel. Weird.

I'd assumed that there had been a drop, but I had no idea it was that sharp or deep. The repercussions of such a drop-off are also surprising. Suck it, Iran.