Ploafmaster General

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This device, striking in its simplicity of function, is one of the coolest ideas I've seen an a long time. Bushnell's BackTrack GPS device is cheap ($60 on Amazon) and basic, functioning much like a stop watch for your location. You press a button to mark your location, and you press a button again to start pointing you back to that location. I'd like to see something like this get cheaper and ubiquitous allowing, for example, parents to give one to each child, or travelers on a budget to find their way back to a key location.

This is a very clever innovation in what's fast becoming a crowded GPS market.

For that tasty mix of irony and awesome, you really ought to consider a tray that makes bullet-shaped ice.

So I'm back in Richmond as of last night, but posting is likely to remain sparse today and tomorrow while I attend a conference for VOUG - the Virginia Oracle Users Group. The pluses, other than the intense and educational sessions I'm sure to encounter? Plenty of catered food included, carpooling with my wife (she works five blocks from the Omni downtown where the conference will be held), and not having to go back to the office until Monday.

I may post some updates during the breaks, but if I do they're likely to be saturated with nerd-speak.

Valerie and I just finished dining at Tapas Restaurant on Hilton Head Island. As the name indicates, the menu consisted of small plates, but the flavors and preparations circled the culinary world (leaning heavily toward French Cuisine). Between the two of us we sampled 8 different dishes - sharing with each other, of course.

We started off with appetizers which may as well have been tapas items themselves. Valerie's Crab Rangoon with cherry-plum sauce was tasty (though not my preference), but the real star here was the Lobster Ravioli in lemon burre-blanc sauce. Now burre-blanc is one of the "mother sauces" of French cuisine, and arguably one of the more difficult to produce, but self-trained chef Ardis Matthews showed herself to be worthy of her kitchen with this entry. The only shame was that this was my first course and easily my best of the night. I wiped up as much of the remaining sauce as possible with the bread (which was fresh and delicious)...

Sticking with seafood, Valerie ordered the Shrimp Parthenon, which consisted of sauteed shrimp with feta and oregano in an amazing tomato bisque. There was even a little puff-pastry fish in the bowl! I, on the other hand, opted for the Shrimp and Scallops Ardis, deciding that if the chef was willing to put her name on the dish it must be worth a try. I wasn't disappointed - the shrimp were delicious, the scallops perfectly tender, and the lobster cream sauce poured over the top was subtle but spectacular. I went for another seafood round while Valerie digested a bit, choosing the Grilled Pesto Salmon. There's not much to explain, given the name of the dish, but the fish was grilled just right and went better with pesto than I'd have imagined.

My wife's next choice was the Grand Marnier Duck - a thin slice of duck breast sauteed with grapes and pears in a sauce which gave the dish its name. Very flavorful, very tender, and very creative. I went for the Tornado Vernoff - a slice of beef tenderloin sitting in a sauce consisting of Madeira and demi-glace - and what a sauce! My last dinner selection was the Venison au Poivre, a tasty rendition of the steak classic with the stronger flavor of deer.

Beyond belief, we still had dessert! Valerie's creme brulee was one of the lightest I've had, and they broiled brown sugar instead of granulated on top which added a nice change. My "chocolate decadence" (oh what a lousy name) was incredible. It was as dense as a brownie and layered with caramel and toffee bits.

We will return on Tuesday when Val's mom, accompanied by two friends, join us on the island. What a dining experience.

The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin interviews British actor Simon Pegg. I'm already a huge fan of Pegg's work in Shawn of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but this interview sheds some light on his wit and intelligence as well.

An iPhone, I has one.

Sure, I'm excited about having the internet in my pocket, location-aware applications, the ability to easily access my Gmail account from my office, et cetera. But mostly I'm happy to be able to put my phone in my pocket again and get rid of that HTC Brick.

Oh yeah, and the iPhone plugin for Mint is fan-freakin'-tastic.

David Friedman, of Ironic Sans, has recently updated his portfolio site. That's all fine and dandy, but said portfolio site now includes a photo blog as well.

Subscribed.

His Inventor Portraits are shaping up to be a fascinating series.

I'd forgotten the sheer beauty of Phillip Bloom's film making:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1466234&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1
Portrait of Siberia from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Today is the fourth anniversary of my marriage to Valerie, and sure, there will be celebrating, gift giving, et cetera. We're even heading out of town Saturday through Wednesday to get away on a nice little romantic trip.

But now, on this day, I reflect more on the idea that I made a choice before God and man to be with this woman as long as we both shall live. There are still too many days where the gravity of such a choice fails to sink in completely, but even when it does, I'm not frightened. I can say, honestly, that I'd make the same decision over again any time, any place. Here is a woman I trust, desire, and for whom I care more than any other. Here is a woman who treats me better than I deserve, loves me more than I can return, and forgives me more than I understand.

Bachelorhood is overrated :-)

Dig that sample of the Knight Rider theme...

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1831024&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1
Bathtub III from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

(via yewknee)

Michael Pardus, instructor at the Culinary Institute of America, shows how straightforward it can be to make as classic a dish as consommé on the food blog, A Hunger Artist. Sure, not everybody in The States has beef hearts or leeks lying around, but the general concept certainly seems a whole lot less obfuscated after Pardus' relatively simple demonstration.
(via Ruhlman)

Wikipedia tells us that redscale "...is the name given to a technique of shooting photographic film where the film is exposed from the wrong side..." This process results in a red/orange cast to the developed photographs. Check out this sweet example from Flickr user xiao shan:



The typical process, in the past, involved spooling film backwards and was seriously inconsistent and tricky to accomplish. So the folks over at Lomography have created a pre-loaded-reversed film that they sell for what appears to be $15 for a three pack of 36 exposure rolls, and they call it RedScale, of course.

I think the idea is neat, but I imagine you can simply use filters in most cases to achieve the same effect. And certainly you get better mileage out of a $30 filter than $5/roll. Besides, with a filter, you could use any format or speed of film you choose. Additionally, if you're the type of film photographer that's okay with computer post-processing, adding this look is easy enough in iPhoto, let alone Photoshop. So while I'm glad to see anybody further the world of film, it's hard to see this as any more than a gimmick on par with pre-cubed cheese.

I think it would be totally worth the trip to Michigan just to see the Hillsdale Fair Combine Demolition Derby.

Well at least the photos from the American Festivals Project make it seem awesome.

Crazy, trippy, fantastic:

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1829835&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=ffffff&fullscreen=1
Metamorphosis from Bryant on Vimeo.

Check out this tasty image of 40 old ticket stubs (with Spanish writing, maybe?). There's some pleasant type, a few interesting stamps, and some bright colors - the collected lot of them making a pretty mosaic of what would otherwise be thrown away.
(via RVANews)

It's fun to sit on the corner in Carytown and watch the world go by. Through my viewfinder.

I couldn't let the day pass without seriously congratulating (for the whole world to see...okay, for about five people to see) my brother, Mugs, on landing a full time position with his employer, leaving the uncertain world of "IT Contractor" in the past.

Rock on, bro. CELEBRATE.

When I first watched Joel and Ethan Coen's No Country For Old Men I was filled with both a little confusion and a lot of disappointment. Confusion because I couldn't tell what the point was supposed to be, and disappointment because I felt as if the ending was one big anticlimax. I initially gave it 3/5 stars because, while the story felt like a trick, the acting and cinematography were at least high quality.

Tonight I finally got around to watching the movie a second time, and I certainly feel as if that helped. I won't go too deep into this because far more entertaining and capable reviewers have already said most of what can be said. I will say, however, that the whole point of the film seems to be that there is little point to life.

Tommy Lee Jones' soliloquy at the end sums it up perfectly. He recounts the second of two overnight dreams to his wife and describes how his father (a sheriff like Jones' character) rode ahead of him to make a fire in the darkness. No matter where he went, Jones' character knew that there would be that light in the dark.

And then he woke up.

4/5

Okay, so here's a slightly more fleshed-out reaction to the 3rd season premier of Heroes than I provided in an earlier comment.

It's been a while since I watched the show, and in that long intermediate period I've since seen a number of fantastic films and become hooked on a show with quality screenwriting and performances. It's likely, as well, that the space between Heroes' second and third seasons as removed me far enough from the pull of the series as to dull my appreciation for it. So it was that I found myself vacillating between MST3K-style mockery and that feeling of forcing myself to find the bright spots that I experienced with each album released by Weezer after Pinkerton.

Is Heroes past it's prime so soon? Was it ever a good show? The show is a half-acknowledged take on the X-Men concept, and the acting and dialogue has never been very good. I think what keeps my watching is the curiosity about the broader plot and characters which comes from having already watched two seasons.

I can tell you one thing for sure, though: If it doesn't pick up after a couple more episodes, it'll be an easy decision to devote one more hour a week to reading instead of television.

Oh yeah, and while I tried to work this into my write-up, I couldn't in any easy way...The AV Club's take on the season premier is HILARIOUS, and pretty much nails what I'm starting to feel about the show in general (especially that, despite all the criticism, the author can still give it a B+).

Heroes returns tonight with a two-hour season premier. If I'm unreachable this evening, now you know why...

Um...VERY YES.

The Morning News' Rosecrans Baldwin interviews Rafael Goldchain about his project, "I Am My Family," wherein he creates self-portraits as other members of his family. The photographs are all stunning even when you ignore the makeup and preparation required of each setup. Baldwin's interview itself is also a joy as he discusses the impetus, research, preparation, and the impact of these fictitious portraits on the artist and family.

For the love of all that is good, go check out Bandcamp - a new web app designed for bands to present and distribute their music on the Internet. The whole thing looks so gorgeous and easy to set up/use that I practically want to record some music just to have an excuse to set up my own page.

Currently, they include a track on the main page from 20 Minute Loop - a pretty cool rock band if I do say so myself. So in order to show both how easy-to-use/gorgeous Bandcamp can be, and how cool 20 Minute Loop sounds, here's the whole album:

http://bandcamp.mu/EmbeddedPlayer.swf/album=119385304/

As I mentioned last week, this past weekend was a time for celebration as one of my best friends entered marriage. It was also a time for me to burn through a few rolls of Fuji Neopan 1600. Check out some of my favorite results in the usual place...