Ploafmaster General

I caught a story on NPR's Morning Edition on the way to work about France expanding its Champagne region (and thus potential production acreage) to about 40 more villages in the area. This is, apparently, the first time in around 100 years that more territory has been brought into the appellation.

I can't imagine how an eleven per cent increase in production will meet the soaring demand for genuine Champagne wines, but at least its a start. I'd be interested to find/read opinions from people and producers within the classic boundary.

On Monday night I attended the CD release show for my friend Taylor Barnett's new album, For Someone.

The show was fantastic and included many of the songs from the album, several new pieces, and at least one cover (a Charles Mingus tune I can't remember). This was the second time I've seen Taylor's own ensemble play - the first was his composition recital - but I dare say The Camel on W. Broad St. was a far more comfortable setting for some Jazz than the concert hall at VCU.

I purchased For Someone near the end of the show, and I've been listening to it throughout the week. I'm already a fan of jazz ranging from Duke Ellington to Miles Davis to The Bad Plus (one of my favorites), so while I was supporting my friend on one hand, I was more than happy to get both hands on a recording of his original work. As objectively as I can put this, Taylor's album is awesome.

A stand-out track for me is "What Do You Think Of Me?" which induces a mood of introspective melancholy and showcases some delicious guitar playing from the incredibly talented Trey Pollard. I'm also a huge fan of "Esther's Dance" - a raucous and fun piece that seems fit for dancing indeed. The title track, "For Someone," seems to build perpetually to a resolution that we only experience at the song's close, pulling the listener through to its gentle conclusion. I'm finding the rest of the album to be worth repeated listens as well, with fantastic work on "Bartók Blues", "Cloak and Dagger" and the rest.

Check it out samples of For Someone on DigStation where it's available for purchase as a download (including the cover art from my friend Haley Hollenbach).

Now here's a really clever idea:



These are cutting boards with file-folder-style index tabs and color coding by food type. This is a novel idea that looks both well designed and well thought out. But I have a short wish list...

1. I'd prefer they separate fruits and vegetables into two sizes. Have you ever cut fruit on a cutting board even a day after chopping onions/shallots/garlic?
2. I wish they had a bread board in there, too.
3. How about making these available in A3 size, eh? :-)

(via Uncrate)

Okay, just a warning...this is about an obscure corner case technical problem (at least it seems that way to me) and its solution. Well, my solution at least.

I use Microsoft Excel at work fairly often. I frequently create formulas which generate INSERT or UPDATE statements for an Oracle database. Well today I just got fed up with an annoying quirk concerning the way Excel handles dates. Here's the situation:

One of the columns on my spreadsheet is formatted as a date like this: 1-May-2008

I have a formula to generate an INSERT statement which uses the date in the WHERE clause.

I want to paste the result of the formula into a database tool so I can execute the query.

When I copy and paste a value directly from the date column, I see the date as I expect it. When I paste the result of the formula, the date shows up in stupid Excel date-time code.

I puzzled at this for a while, and flailed about on Google looking for an answer, until a co-worker asked a question which provided the solution: "Is the data a date or a string?" That fired off a thought-process which led to my solution:

1. Copy and past all the values in the column to a text editor.
2. Change the format of the column in Excel to "Text" instead of "Date."
3. Paste the values back into the column in Excel.

Now when I paste the result of the formula into my database tool or text editor or whatever, I see the date as expected. What a pain in the arse for something seemingly so simple.

Tamara Jenkins' The Savages was one of the most beautifully filmed movies I've watched in a couple of years. The cinematography by W. Mott Hupfel III was gorgeous - sometimes saturated, sometimes like a still-frame from a photographic camera. All of this was, of course, complemented by spectacular acting from Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. The story was a little slow (and a little long), but I would recommend watching this to anybody with both an appreciation for dark humor and sympathy towards broken family relationships.

4/5

In a move that's sure to reinforce the notion that TV stars transition poorly to the big screen as leads, The Office's Rainn Wilson is starring in The Rocker this summer.

It's disappointing to see an actor who plays such an intense and well-done character as Dwight Schrute reduced to a low-brow slapstick comedy role. Ooooooh...a washed up hair band drummer. Playing in a high school prom. And making a come-back.

I can't imagine this film will be any good, so I'll stick to watching Dwight behave like the weirdest paper salesmen imaginable.

The BBC is running a story on their site about a bakery at the Mount Everest base camp. The whole operation is run using a special portable oven, and includes some clearly non-local foods like banana bread and apple pie. What cool, though, is that the profits are reportedly going towards a trust fund for local villagers to help deal with the dangers that come with global warming.
(picture via Flickr user Emma Sjönell)

Peter Hossli writes about architect Annabelle Selldorf's current project: a Chelsea apartment building in Manhattan with a car elevator so residents can park beside their apartments - regardless which level!

I think this is a fantastic solution to a problem so common in large cities, and while this incarnation will find itself attached to a super-luxurious residential space I think it's a concept worth further developing in urban areas.
(via swissmiss)

I seriously almost peed myself laughing at this. I actually drooled on my keyboard, and the afterlaugh^TM is so strong that I'm convulsing in my chair.

Just try watching this without a simultaneous laugh and WTF? moment:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8NOxoZ3rZc&hl=en&w=580&h=485]

4:04 PM. Day Not Found

from Phil on Twitter.

As is often the case, it was my wife who suggested going to Buzz and Ned's barbecue when we headed out for lunch with her mom yesterday.

When I placed my order, I decided I'd try a Boylan's Creme Soda - something I'd never had before. In fact, I failed to recall any time when I'd had a Boylan's soda. When it came to specialty root bears I tended to reach for Stewart's first (they were all over the place in Jersey when I was a kid) or a Root 66, and a variety of creme sodas always seemed hard to come by in Virginia. So try I did.

And you should, too.

Boylan actually uses real cane sugar and pure vanilla extract in the creme soda, so it was smooth, the right kind of sweet, and delicious. It turns out they produce a completely natural version of several of their sodas, the creme included (with Bourbon vanilla, chocolate, and coffee extracts). I hope to find some of these this week.
(image via Flickr user Kawika Takara)

My dinner was better than yours. Why? Because I made my lasagna tonight, that's why.

I'm getting a lot better at reducing my sauce to the right consistency, and applying just the right amount of salt. I'm also starting to perfect the distribution of the cheese mixture (I piped it on using a cut zip-top bag - there's no better way, man) and the overall texture and thickness of the finished and assembled product.

I was happy to share the meal with the folks in our Bible study, but I'm happier that we have leftovers :-)

Most folks who take pictures beyond casual point-and-shoot party pictures know that depth of field refers to the range within which objects are in focus when viewed through a camera's lens. A larger depth of field means more of what's within the frame is in focus, and the opposite is true for a small depth of field. Folks who are familiar with manual photography (film or digital) understand that you can adjust this depth of field by adjusting the aperture of the lens. You open the aperture to narrow the depth of field, and you reduce the aperture to increase the depth of field.

What most folks outside of professionals may not understand, though, is that the depth of field is also affected by the distance from the subject, or magnification. So while I might expect opening my lens up to f1.4 to give me that glorious depth of field sought by so many amateurs like myself, I have to make sure I'm also close to my subject.

The above photograph, from Flickr user Adam Holte, demonstrates this principal nicely. While his aperture was set to f13 (which many would expect to produce a medium depth of field), he was very close to the subject - either by walking up to it or zooming in really tight - so the depth of field is still quite narrow.

Just some food for thought, and maybe even a good reason to start using that depth-of-field preview button on your SLR :-)

It's Friday, and so far I'm not in a huge thinking mood, so I hope you find this awesome McSweeney's goody as humorous as I did.

Ladies and gentlemen, the (IM)AGNA CARTA.

...the distinction between "great marketing accomplishment" and "consumer fraud" can be quite thin...

from Going Private: The Five Circles of Hell

A centralized monitoring system for the District of Columbia's closed-circuit camera network? Join the club with New York and Chicago. Awesome.

And by "awesome" I mean "terrifying."

What you see above is a relief carving of a triceratops into the side of fossilized dinosaur poop! Now I don't know if the coprolite comes from the dinosaur carved on the side...but does it matter?

This same site, tellmewhereonearth.com, sells jewelry made from moose and deer poop! Somehow I don't think that'd pass muster as a gift for a significant other...

As if Google Maps wasn't already useful enough, they've decided to integrate Street View with their driving directions:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgJSXrkwshg&hl=en&w=580&h=485]
(via Ze Frank)

The North Richmond News reports that Richmond's government is considering a change to the intersection of Laburnum and Hermitage. While said crossing is currently managed by traffic lights, officials are looking at changing the traffic pattern to a two lane circle similar to the Lee Circle at Allen and Monument.

Part of me thinks this is useful - after all, this could actually lead to fewer accidents and a better flow of traffic - but part of me is pissed off. I don't care what benefits traffic circles may bring because driving through them annoys the crap out of me :-)

Watching today's new episode of Good Eats, I noticed a reference to Texas' "Safe Cupcake Amendment." Yes, it's real, and yes, there's stupidity on both sides of the "issue."

Ahem.

If you can stand the loung-o-rific snooze tune playing in the background, check out this short video clip depicting the manufacture of plastic bottles from a mixture of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), recycled plastic, and plant sugars:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqoPivZ2vuI&hl=en&w=580&h=485]

I researched this a little further and discovered that NatureWorks, the company which produces this plastic, is a joint venture between Cargill and Japan's Teijin Limited. With Cargill's involvement, I bet you can guess where those natural plant sugars come from...

Well just in case you can't, NatureWorks fills in the gap on the home page telling us that corn is used. Okay, so maybe it's not just corn - they say it comes from renewable sources "such as corn," but all their PR-speak FAQs refer to corn. I'm fascinated by the possibility of plastic manufacture from renewable sources, but knowing Cargill's impact on our farms and food culture, I can't help wondering what adverse affects this product would have if it took hold in the packaging industry.

This is almost seven minutes, but it's like fuel injection for your soul. Plus, the little kid waving his head around like a maniac is totally awesome.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ul7X5js1vE&hl=en&w=580&h=485]

I'm not a huge video game player, but there are some series of games which I adore. Mario Kart is one of them, so today I purchased the latest title for the Wii.

This game is AWESOME.

The steering seems reasonably sensitive out of the box, the tracks are excellent (especially Wario's Gold Mine), and the addition of motorcycles seems like a brilliant idea (it feels like way different steering dynamics to me). I was sure to purchase an extra wheel so Valerie and I can play the same way together, and I'm really jazzed about racing some of my friends who live elsewhere. This game has the potential to be another huge hit for Nintendo.

I'm a huge fan of 30 Rock - Tina Fey's razor sharp writing and comedy timing keep me entertained for thirty minutes every Thursday night. So I was okay with the idea of going on a date with my wife which included a viewing of Baby Mama, which opened last night. Until I watched it.

To be fair, the parts that were funny were EXTREMELY funny, and Steve Martin's character was one of the funniest parts he's played in years. But the rest of the movie was absolutely ridiculous. Cliche jokes, over-predictable situations, and stereotypical characters plagued the feature throughout, and I couldn't help feeling like the lead actors were stifled by an underwritten script. But the script wasn't written by Fey - it was written by Michael McCullers. McCullers has such stellar writing credits as the last two Austin Powers movies and Undercover Brother. w00t!

Two out of five, man, because this movie didn't even meet the lukewarm expectations I barely had.