fabric organizing party
30 Mar 07
First, here’s what three boxes and four bags of fabric scraps look like dumped out on Claire’s bed:
Now the hard part: how to get this stuff into two plastic totes in a way that might be called organized—by colour, light and dark? by weight, light and heavy? or by usefulness, useful and “why the hell do we still have this”? What I actually ended up with was bits and scraps (in green) and costume resources (in purple):
Oh, the box of leather is still a box of leather. And don’t worry, baby, I didn’t throw anything out. Not that I wasn’t tempted.
Posted by pzed on March 30, 2007 at 9.17pm
what could possibly be interesting about this bookshelf. . .
28 Mar 07
. . . apart from bad lighting and a jaunty lurch?
Well, not so long ago it was mostly empty. Today, it is more than mostly full, and four and a half boxes that were cluttering up Claire’s bedroom are now neatly nested and tucked away in the basement. A careful observer will notice that a lot of these books are rather old. Some belonged to my grandparents, some belonged to Jodi’s grandparents, a few belonged to my dad, and some were mine and/or Jodi’s all along.
Now, I need to tread carefully. There are some legitimate family heirlooms here; for example, my great-great-grandfather Van Houten’s copy of Pilgrim’s Progress. I’m wondering if, in some cases, it wouldn’t be best to hold a little memorial service and immolate them. Or maybe we’ll just hang on to them forever and let my grandkids figure it out. Van Who?
That being said, rest assured I haven’t done anything crazy. There are, however, a few titles that emerged from these boxes which, I think, can safely be put up for adoption. The following, then, are looking for a new home. Tell your friends!
Family Circle Do-It-Yourself Encyclopedia, vol 2 (Bas-Bui). Garden City, NY: Rockville House, 1973.
Fry, Christopher. Venus Observed: A Comedy. London: Oxford UP, 1949.
Hieatt, Constance B. and Sharon Butler, eds. Curye on Inglysch: English Culinary Manuscripts of the Fourteenth Century. London: Oxford UP, 1985.
Larsen, Earnest. Good Old Plastic Jesus. Liguori, MO: Liguorian Books, 1968.
Mackenzie, Compton. Vestal Fire. New York: Curtis Books, 1927.
Munro, Alice. Friend of My Youth. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 1991.
Poch, John and Chad Davidson. Hockey Haiku: The Essential Collection. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2006.
Posted by pzed on March 28, 2007 at 8.33pm
chow mein noodle lasagna-esque casserole
26 Mar 07
ingredients
- 1 lb fresh chow mein noodles
- 28oz can crushed tomatoes
- 2 5.5oz cans tomato paste
- oregano
- basil
- black pepper
- cayenne pepper
- onion
- garlic
- olive oil
- 2 eggs
- cottage cheese
- mozzarella cheese
- 2 T parmesan cheese
Fry the onion and garlic with the black pepper and cayenne pepper in olive oil until onions are clear. Add crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, basil, and oregano and bring to a (thick!) boil. Meanwhile, mix the two eggs vigourously into the cottage cheese.
When the sauce is ready, mix half of it with half of the chow mein noodles and dump this in a casserole dish as the bottom layer. Add half the cottage cheese and egg mixture, sprinkle on a thin layer of grated mozzarella cheese. Then mix the remaining chow mein noodles with the remaining sauce and add it to the casserole, followed by the remaining cottage cheese mixture, and a thick layer of mozzarella. Finish by sprinkling the parmesan cheese over the top, and bake at 350°F for 30 minutes. Let stand for five minutes and serve.
Chop sticks are counterindicated.
Posted by pzed on March 26, 2007 at 10.35pm
adventu-ramen
24 Mar 07
WARNING: This is a long post, with lots of pictures that may be slow loading and a few links to sources at the end. But first, the recipe:
Today, Claire and I made ramen. More accurately, we made something like ramen. Having never made ramen before, we realize that what we made was pretty rudimentary and probably not anything really like what the Japanese call ramen, but it turned out pretty well anyway. One challenge, here, is that most ramen recipes I could find involve pork of some kind. Since I don’t eat pork, this recipe is based on chicken. Note that the various stages of this recipe will overlap.
broth
- chicken bones
- ginger
- chinese cabbage
- bok choy
- green onions
- chinese broccoli
- onion
- garlic
- water
- salt
Quantities aren’t all that important, just don’t overdo it on the salt. Combine all ingredients, bring to a boil, then simmer for at least two hours. Strain out broth and return to pot.
base
- 2 T sesame oil
- dark-fried onion
- minced garlic
- 1/4 c miso paste
- 2 T soy sauce
- dried red chili peppers
Fry onion and garlic in sesame oil until onion is a dark brown colour. This should be done slowly so as not to burn the onion. Add remaining ingredients and cook slowly for a few minutes. Then combine base and soup stock and bring to a boil. As far as timing is concerned, everything else should be ready once the finished soup is boiling.
toppings
- chinese broccoli
- celery
- sprouts
- shiitake mushrooms
- green onions
- hard-boiled egg
- baked oriental chicken
The chicken can be prepared while the stock is simmering. In a small casserole, mix 1/3 cup soya sauce with 1 1/2 T honey and 1 T sesame oil. Marinate the chicken in this mixture for at least an hour, turning occasionally. Bake at 325°F until chicken is cooked through. Slice chicken and keep warm—timing this thing is a nightmare!
The eggs can be boiled while everything else is going on, and can then be cooled to room temperature. The other toppings will be added fresh. I quartered the chinese broccoli and sliced the celery in longish spears.
putting it all together
Depending on what noodles are used, they may need to be prepared in advance too. We were too lazy to make noodles from scratch, and decided to use some fresh chow mein noodles we found at Wingli Farm market (see pictures, below). Once the soup was boiling, we served out our desired quantities of noodles into bowls. The bowls should be heated in the oven to prevent the ramen from cooling too quickly.
We then ladled our desired portions of soup over the noodles and added the toppings. Wait about two minutes to allow noodles to cook, and eat. Itadikimasu!
photos
Because of the huge number of photos I’m about to show you, I’ve used a smaller size than I’d normally like. If you’d care for a better look, I’ve created an Adventu-ramen flickr set which also includes a few photos not shown here, believe it!
sakura fashion zone
Our adventure began with a bit of a side trip. Despite this store’s exciting name, we didn’t find much inside to excite Claire. I was blown away by the huge number of crazy multi-coloured running shoes, but since I knew we weren’t buying, I didn’t take pictures.
three from Wingli Farm
Wingli Farm was the first of three grocery stores Claire and I visited while shopping for this meal.
I’m not sure chow mein counts as ramen, and I realize the noodles are in fact what makes ramen ramen, but chow mein are a basic egg noodle, so I figured close enough for a first effort.
We also bought sencha: Japanese green tea. The package says “Keep in a cool and dark place and be careful of the lingering scent.” Not exactly the product poetry I was hoping for, but the tea was loverly.
four from International Market
International Market is up the street from Wingli Farm. Windsor’s diversity has always impressed me. Here, Claire waits patiently while I dick around with the camera.
Bowls!
Chinese greens: we only bought the chinese broccoli.
I was starting to fret a little for the entire project, but at last we found miso paste hiding in a cooler.
and two from Zehrs
I took this one from my car in the parking lot. Can’t say Zehrs is particularly exciting.
Here’s our stuff at the check out counter. Some of this did end up in the ramen.
food prep
Frozen chicken bones in a stock pot: they probably should have been cleaner. Pretty much all the pictures of food prep were taken by Claire.
This is me, chopping chinese cabbage. I only used about half the head: it has a nifty flavour fresh, so I saved some to go in a salad later this week.
Two more vegetables eager to meet their doom.
The chicken bones are buried under vegetable ingredients, and it’s time to cover with water.
Making the marinade for the chicken, very yummy. I accidentally had to lick some off my fingers.
Boiling eggs: this dish has so many elements!
These next four all show the soup base in various stages. First the onions frying.
Then the onions, garlic, and pepper fried to perfection.
Here I am, adding the miso paste.
And finally the soy sauce.
The chicken was baked for about half an hour, I kind of lost track. How artful that you can see the soup base and the stock chugging away in the background.
The toppings are ready and it’s time to finish the soup.
My hand is a blur as my mad ninja skillz stir the soup base into the stock.
I heated the bowls in the oven, and then started building the dish. Here’s most of the ingredients waiting for the soup.
And here’s the finished ramen on the stove. . .
. . . and on the table. I love that this piece of broccoli was in flower. The shiitake mushrooms are also just beautiful to look at. Unfortunately, the arrangement of this bowl was a little haphazard. The image at top, taken by Claire (but cropped by me) shows a much better finish.
Did we like it? See for yourself.
This was Claire’s first ever use of chopsticks. She did quite well.
In all the excitement, we almost forgot to make tea.
I read on worldramen.net than “Eating ramen is unresistable craving.” They also say that “Cooking Ramen is the state of art. It is NEVER easy enough to be mastered without years-long practical training.” And you know, I believe it. There’s a huge number of variables in terms of how this stuff goes together, and I doubt I could make exactly the same ramen tomorrow that I made today (partially that’s because I never measure). But I have to say, what we ended up with today was really, really, really good. There’s a link to worldramen.net below, as well as some other sources I used for ideas.
sources
Bob & Angie. “Shoyu Ramen.” http://www.bob-an.com/recipe/dailyjc/ref/ramen/ramen.html
BON. “World Ramen.net” http://www.worldramen.net/
Fischer, Matthew. “The Official Ramen Homepage.” http://mattfischer.com/ramen/
Murdey, Richard. “Richard’s Ramen Recipe.” http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Temple/9151/ramen.html
Naruto Fever. “Ramen Recipes.” http://narutofever.com/information/ramen-recipe.php
Recipe Zaar. “Chinese Roasted Chicken Recipe.” http://www.recipezaar.com/135753
Posted by pzed on March 24, 2007 at 10.58pm
Baudrillard, Simulations
22 Mar 07
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulations. Trans. Paul Foss, Paul Patton, and Philip Beitchman. New York: Semiotext(e), 1983.
I seem to recall, deep in my personal history, studying reading comprehension at teachers college and running across a model for reading that outlined six levels of comprehension. I can’t remember exactly what they were, and frankly don’t care to try to look them up.
Reading Baudrillard, I think there must be a lost, seventh level. I know what all the words mean, I really do! And I even know what they mean when you put them together. And I should say his ideas, as I understand them, aren’t entirely new to me—it’s remarkable the extent to which he’s influenced others I have read. But like so many of those French guys, he writes densely and lets the reader do a considerable amount of the work.
Funny thing is, there is an excitement to it. That might be hard to explain, but I find there’s a flow to his thoughts, and so many of his examples are contemporaneous to my life (Disneyland, Watergate, the Tasaday) that I find it fun and relevant even when I know I’m missing the odd nuance. Or maybe even the odd central point. Here’s a Disneyland bit I liked that captures the flavour of this book nicely:
Disneyland is there to conceal the fact that it is the “real” country, all of “real” America, which is Disneyland (just as prisons are there to conceal the fact that it is the country in its entirety, in its banal omnipresence, which is carceral). Disneyland is presented as imaginary in order to make us believe that the rest is real, when in fact all of Los Angeles and the America surrounding it are no longer real, but of the order of the hyperreal and of simulation. (25)
See what I mean? I love the way the parenthetical bit about prisons supports the Disneyland example, introduces a whole new host of assumptions, and adds that little “banal omnipresence” spin.
Posted by pzed on March 22, 2007 at 9.28pm
Kintaro fights the Earth-Spider
12 Mar 07
Edwards, Osman. Japanese Plays and Playfellows. New York: John Lane, 1901.
“Tsuchigumo,” the Earth-Spider. . . is founded on a curious legend, whose chief merit may be that it affords excuse for a fantastic stage-picture. It seems that a band of robbers, who lived in caves and were known by the nickname of earth-spiders, were routed from their lairs and exterminated by Kintaro, servant of Yoremitsu, whose valour was much enhanced in popular estimation by the flattering rumour that the defeated pests were not men at all, but a race of enormous demon-insects. Accordingly, the climax of “Tsuchigumo” is a stirring encounter between Imperial Guards, armed with swords and spears, and masked monsters, who entangle their weapons and baffle their aim in a cloud of long gauzy filaments, resembling the threads of a spider’s web. (55-56)
[plate faces page 56]
“Kintaro fights the Earth-Spider”
Also of interest:
Joly, Henri L. Legend in Japanese Art. Rutland, Vermont: Charles E. Tuttle, 1967.
TSUCHIGUMO. The invulnerable earth spider which infested the province of Yamato, in the time of Jimmu Tenno. It was proof against steel, and the only way in which it could be killed was devised by Mono-no-Funo-Michi-on-no-Mikoto, who closed the mouth of the cave in which the monster lived, with an iron net, and by means of a huge fire smoked the spider in its den.
Posted by pzed on March 12, 2007 at 4.52pm
it’s the beginning of a new age
9 Mar 07
How egocentric a title, eh? All I did was buy a little camera. Luckily mine came with a couple lenses and a camera bag! It’s an entry level digital SLR, intended to teach me whether I really want to get serious with photography or not. So it has point-n-shoot settings as well as totally manual options. Here’s the first picture I took:
It’s a little blurry; I’ve decided to play with manual focus, and I missed a little. Claire was having trouble getting inspired as well. But when I took the first photo she burst out laughing and said, “It made a camera noise!” Yes, dear, that’s the shutter.
Three’s a charm: the obligatory ninjutsu.
Posted by pzed on March 9, 2007 at 9.57pm
rainbow corn and cheese chowder
8 Mar 07
Ingredients:
2 T butter
1/4 t each black pepper, paprika
pinch salt
1 carrot
1 stalk celery
1 onion
1 c water
2 c frozen corn
3/4 c frozen peas
1 red pepper
1 potato
2 T flour
2 c milk
2 c shredded old cheddar cheese
Chop the onion, carrot, and celery. Fry these in the butter with salt, pepper, and paprika, until the onions are clear. Add water, corn, peas, red pepper (chopped), and potato (also chopped). Simmer until potato is tender.
Place 1/2 cup milk in a jar with tight fitting lid. Add flour and shake vigorously. Add gradually to cooked vegetables and add remaining milk. Add cheese once the soup starts to simmer. Continue to simmer over low heat (but do not boil) until everything seems integrated and yummy.
unabashedly adapted from NIH and cooks.com.
Posted by pzed on March 8, 2007 at 7.18pm
code4lib: final thoughts
2 Mar 07
code4lib2007 was held in Athens at the University of Georgia’s Centre for Continuing Education. It’s Friday, the conference is over, and I’m now sitting in Hot Corner, a funky little coffee shop where the wireless is free but the coffee is significantly over-priced. I’m pretty much wiped out by the conference. Assuming I remembered to tag them all correctly, there are currently 20 entries in my code4lib category (this will be the 21st – that’s not counting the preconference). The 20 minute limit per session is brilliant. Really, nobody needs more than 20 minutes to say what needs to be said, especially at a geek conference where everything’s online and if you don’t know somebody, you know somebody who does. The 5 minute lightning talks make this point even more boldly.
If I have one complaint, it was with the food. I was disappointed, but I’ve been South enough not to be surprised, that the meals were quite dissatisfying from a vegetarian perspective. It is possible to create yummy meals with enough variety that a vegetarian can get something to eat, but it doesn’t happen very often around here. Breakfast this morning was sausage on biscuits, bacon on biscuits, ham and cheese croissants, bagels, sugary muffins, juice, and coffee. Yesterday I watched a more strict vegetarian than I build herself a cheese sandwich out of hamburger condiments because the meal was burgers, hotdogs, fried chicken, and macaroni salad.
Otherwise the conference center was comfortable and the room was very well laid out for presentations. Ample power was available, and after a few glitches on day one, the wireless worked well enough.
Content-wise, apart from feeling a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of presentations, I am excited by a couple things. Perhaps, on a personal note, I was most excited that at no time during this conference did I feel like the presenters were speaking a different language. I’ve learned a lot since Access 2002, my first library geek conference. As far as what people actually said, I think the most exciting development is the way in which a cluster of technologies for indexing, searching, and presenting documents and representations of documents are coming to maturity. There appears to be some money behind open source ILS development, and some first-rank talent as well. There are neat things happening in terms of presentation of results and data visualization, and the exciting potential for a social layer built on top of library data. Seamless authentication remains a huge hurdle, but we can dream.
So I’m very glad I came. I got a heck of a lot more out of this conference than simply an opportunity to be with Jodi on my employer’s ticket. I’m going to need to learn a lot more about how to implement some of the things I’ve seen as part of a music project I’ve been planning. I also couldn’t help but notice the potential usefulness of much that was presented to projects my library’s web team has talked about. And now, once Jodi is done teaching at 3.30, I get a weekend holiday in the sun.
Posted by pzed on March 2, 2007 at 3.31pm
Lightning Talks 4
2 Mar 07
[I left LT4 early, so not all talks are represented here]
Andrew Darby, Ithaca College Library: Adopting an Orphanware Project
keen on fixing subject guides using Pirate Source (E Carolina U)
ECU released with “download now” link, later pulled
AD fixed it up to his liking, wrote an article on it, augmented admin views
received a request for his code, but of course his was based on ECU’s
wrote ECU and received permission to redistribute, has since received permission to release under GNU-type license
Ryan Wick, Oregon State U: EAD PDF Generator
server-side, no client/editor setup needed
designed to assist archives in making PDFs from finding aids
automatic series outline/toc
support for external links
future plans
– better EAD support
– enhanced container list display
– possible cusomization
related work
– http://paulingcatalogue.org/; output to Adobe InDesign
Tim Dohohue, U of Illinois: IDEALS
http://www.ideals.uiuc.edu/
DSpace archive
wanted to allow researchers to submit in any format
used OpenOffice free api to build document converter
– Word to PDF
would like to generate a better preservation format (DocBook XML, OpenOffice Writer perhaps)
basic Java programme
command line script available outside DSpace
future plans to create disseminator for DSPace: rather than storing all formats in DSpace, do conversion on download on the fly
– would be a delay for larger files
Ralph LeVan, OCLC Research Office: Identities Project
extract identities from WorldCat
http://orlabs.oclc.org/Identities/
– timeline
– alternate names
– audience levels
– works about
– related names
would like to add ability to link from bib records
Tito Sierra, NCSU Libraries: Best Bets: Improving Search to High Demand Resources
analyze search log to see what people search most
build a custom index
integrate with web site search to bring most common to top
top 100 queries (NCSU Lib website) are 30.2% of all searches
include alternate keywords feature (eg. lexus to lexis)
quick search module based on 50 total Best Bets
implementation: small xml files
forces popular results to top
can create for items that may not be included in your search crawl
keyword field enables misspelling/synonym matches
custom description displays
Best Bets account for 16.6% of search clickthroughs
local logging of all serves and clicks
can use click % to improve service
Nicole Engard, Jenkins Law Library (Philadelphia): Intranet
nice, light, clean, friendly interface
more fun than the stodgier public face
includes a blog-like message board
links to key resources
calendering EXTcalender
uses WYSiWYG Pro editor ($40 for non-profit)
Posted by pzed on March 2, 2007 at 12.28pm
