Recipe-blogging

A lot of bloggers like to recipe-blog. I'm not one of them, because I'm a terrible cook. Maybe I'm not terrible, but I refuse to even try, so there's no way to find out if I'll ever be good at it. My only food-making abilities involve great scrambled eggs, a perfect PB&J, and good steak-grilling.

Fortunately, the official VM fiancee likes to cook. For Thanksgiving, she made this tasty number.

That's right: bacon-wrapped dates with goat cheese. They were tremendous, combining the saltiness and texture of the bacon with the sweetness of the dates and, um, the glue-like nature of the cheese, which helped the little almond bits get stuck in our teeth.

And, that's right: there's actually a site called "iheartbacon.com".

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posted by Gil at 8:57 PM

I've heard of product tie-ins, but...

Watching the Giants-Seahawks game on Fox right now, and I'm just wondering: given that Washington state is currently searching for a couple of convicts who busted out during the weekend, maybe the Fox guys could stop promoting Prison Break so heavily during the broadcast.

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posted by Gil at 6:12 PM

Living in Sin

Just as my last night of bachelorhood wasn't exactly filled with strippers and belly-shots, our first weekend of living in sin was pretty laid back. Our main activity was watching flicks, leading to this truly bizarre assortment of Hollywood offerings:

So I Married an Axe Murderer

Showgirls

Kill Bill, Vol. 1

Sign 'o' The Times

Dodgeball

My Fair Lady

The Muppet Movie

Kill Bill, Vol. 2

We moved all of Amy's stuff here on Friday, so now we need to sequentially unpack (and, of course, make room for stuff). I can't wait till we get to the point where we finally figure out what to do with our two copies of the Stanley Kubrick Collection DVD set.

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posted by Gil at 5:46 PM

Is it racist to call it Black Friday?

I don't know the answer to that question, but if you're looking to buy me stuff and avoid going to a mall, you oughtta go to my wish list on Amazon! It's worth checking out, just for the novelty factor of having the Metamorpho collection followed by Jane Jacobs!

The official VM fiancee isn't much more coherent in her tastes, as you can tell from her wish list. She'd sure be happy if someone got her that Complete Buffy DVD set. (On the other hand, I'm convinced she only put this on her list because it might get her closer to Ed Hochuli.)

It's been a great year for smart comics, so if you're looking for gify-buying advice for other geeks, you need to check out Tom Spurgeon's Black Friday and Beyond Shopping Advice For Sophisticated Comics Fans 2005!

We spent Thanksgiving down in Holmdel, NJ, at the parents of Amy's buddy Scott. Highlights (besides the food) included a college student who was like an idiot savant of the behind-the-counter dynamics of fast food (accent on the 'idiot'), and a conversation at the other end of the table about how terrible "drugs" are.

We got home and watched the first part of Kill Bill, which probably won't become a Thanksgiving tradition, but was a lot of fun.

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posted by Gil at 7:00 AM

Happy Thanksgiving!

The official VM fiancee moved in yesterday, and we celebrated with a double-feature of So I Married an Axe Murderer and Showgirls! I got a light dust of snow to fall during the night, so she woke up to a peaceful view of our suburban future.

"Wow," she said. "The only thing we're missing is a monkey butler to serve us coffee."

And you wonder why I'm getting married!

In other news, I posted another set of pix to Flickr. There's about 100 snaps from my October 2002 trip to Paris, including some good "celebrity" shots from Pere Lachaise.

I figured out some neat Photoshop automations that should help me process a whole ton of other shots so I can post them up there, too. The big set from New Zealand will likely be next.

I hope you all have a great holiday weekend.

(Update: posted the NZ pix (11-12/03) and the California coast drive pix (6/04))

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posted by Gil at 8:12 AM

Get Your Flick On

Figured out Flickr this morning, and posted a bunch of pix from that Madrid trip. Enjoy.

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posted by Gil at 5:59 AM

Bachelor Party!

It's my last night of bachelorhood, dear reader! The official VM fiancee is moving in tomorrow, and I've been living it up in style tonight!

That's right: Now that I've gotten over my ass-whomping case of the avian head-cold, I did laundry, cleaned the bathroom AND the kitchen, and also had a long phone conversation with my mom! I live a playboy's life!

Seriously, that was about it for this evening, along with searching for a new company to host some MySQL databases, since Network Solutions isn't doing a great job handling my DB needs (which has kept me from moving this blog into a neat new format).

So them's the thrills at Chez VM. Bathroom and kitchen floors are nice and clean, laundry's folded, and Mom and I were able to talk about some of our family history. Turns out she found some good resources at Yad Vashem about the branch of our family that was wiped out in Poland in 1941. I'll post some links to that when she sends them over.

She came across all these records from other, distant family members, posted since the 1950s. We talked about all the generations and stories that were lost. She told me that her rabbi had some interesting comments recently about the undying nature of the soul, but both of us thought they were bordering on Kaballah mysticism.

I told her I think stories are how we live after we die. It reminded me of the line from Unforgiven where Clint Eastwood says, "Hell of a thing, killin' a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have."

She told me that one of the massacred was supposed to have been named Rachel, and Mom couldn't understand why another name showed up for that person in the records. I told her that there was probably a really easy explanation for it, but that it was just a day-to-day story that was lost. Stories are how we keep living.

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posted by Gil at 10:30 PM

Downdate

Got socked with the office head-cold. Grr.

Amy & I are about to head down to Philadelphia for a friend's wedding, so I'll suck it up, take some Airborne, and leave you with this quote from Latrell Sprewell's agent, Bob Gist:

Anyone who thinks he should play [$1.1 million], that's absurd. [...] He might as well retire. Latrell doesn't need the money that badly. To go from being offered $7 million to taking $1 million, that would be a slap in the face.

Oh, and here's a neat article about the abuses of eminent domain, if that sorta thing interests you.

And here's moment of zen. Enjoy:

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posted by Gil at 9:52 AM

Vaccine, drug: whatever

I don't know why I get worked up about this stuff, but there's a boneheaded editor at the NYTimes who today decided that Tamiflu is a flu vaccine. It's not. It's a drug that treats the flu. There's a world of difference. The writers of the article, Andrew Pollack and Tom Wright, got this correct, referring to Tamiflu as a drug throughout the entire piece.

Given the huge debate going on about how to improve the vaccine infrastructure to prevent a flu pandemic, a headline like this is only going to give more people a wrong impression about the issues.

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posted by Gil at 10:00 AM

Reading material

Neat interview at BusinessWeek about innovative retail achitecture with New Retail author Raul Barraneche:

[W]hat interests both the company and the architects involved is the fact that retail spaces are, by nature, building types that allow for innovation. Stores offer quick turnaround times, as opposed to, say, a residence or a museum. [...]

To paraphrase [architect] Zaha Hadid, shopping is an effective way to see a city; these days, to see what's new in architecture, the most efficient thing to do is to go and look at stores.

Make sure you check out the accompanying slideshow.

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posted by Gil at 7:49 AM

Size and Speed

It's nice to see that baseball's trying to get some illegal substances banned, with the new steroid penalties. Sure, it was fun to see mega-juiced players belt cartoon-level home runs for the past decade or so, and older players show unprecedented power, endurance and recovery time, but the carnival had to come to an end at some point.

(Of course, maybe that point should've been after Brady Anderson socked 50 home runs one season, and then tore the muscles off his rib cage the next year. Don't get me wrong; I don't mind performance-enhancing products. After all, I'm kicking back with a Tanq-10 & tonic right now. But it's legal, and it makes me virtually invulnerable to criticism.)

Anyway, what's good about the new penalties is that it whomped the MLB Players Association square in its testosterone-shrunken nuts. Reading over ESPN's recent "expose" about steroids in baseball, it seems pretty clear that the players' union was the main obstacle to any sort of testing for steroids.

Sure, the owners were happy that home run numbers were up, because it brought in more fans and got more TV revenue, but that added money was likely offset by the increased number of players getting injured, spending more time on the disabled list than ever.

What is amazing about the new policy is that it also involves testing for amphetamines. What the heck were they thinking, adding speed to the banned substance list? Are they planning to cut the season down to 100 games and give them July and August off?

I don't care how much these guys are being paid; it's boring to play 162 games of baseball. Cal Ripken, who couldn't find anything else to do for more than 16 seasons, has to be the dullest man in existence. Or he had to be totally hopped up on goofballs.

Trying to get players off of speed would be like trying to get me to quit drinking during trade shows; it'd be tough to implement, and the final result wouldn't make anyone happy.

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posted by Gil at 10:47 PM

On the Bronsky Beat (ha-ha)

A lot of companies talk about "sales force synergies" when they merge, but they're usually full of crap.

On the other hand, it makes perfect sense for Allergan (makers of Botox) to acquire Inamed (makes of boob implants)!

(Since I was hanging up Playboy centerfolds when I was at the tender age of three, I like to think that I have "the leading breast aesthetics portfolio", but hey.)

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posted by Gil at 9:41 AM

Surrealism, Thy Name Is WWE

Eddie Guerrero--a wrestler I enjoyed watching when I got back into rasslin' from 1999-2002 (or thereabouts)--died yesterday in his hotel room. He was 38, and my immediate guess is that he had a heart attack probably related to his steroid-fueled massivity.

Eddie used to do a great frog splash from the top of the ropes. This move unfortunately led to his dislocating his elbow one time, which was awfully grotesque. He came back from that injury with an absolutely massive physique.

I tuned into the beginning of WWE Raw tonight to see how they'd pay tribute to him (it's a live show). I felt like I was in Crisis on Infinite Earths, as massive men in vinyl masks stood crying on stage. Ric Flair, in a purple-and-silver feathered robe, tries to look stoic, but lip quivering. A 7-foot-tall (?) monster walks to the ring trying to smile, but his eyes are red and puffy. Vince McMahon stutters at the beginning, about to cry, but recovers.

They're trying to perform, but the crowd's completely quiet. Time for Monday Night Football...

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posted by Gil at 9:01 PM

Finally! Congress is going after the B.I.G. issues!

If only a Representative from the West Coast proposed this legislation. Oh, well.

Alternate joke: Maybe this Record Collection Act means that they'll stop putting out new Tupac CDs!

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posted by Gil at 2:40 PM

Phil Simms is NOT gay

Of course, you'd have a hard time proving that if you read this page.

The official VM fiancee found this page while researching her OTHER fiancee, NFL referee Ed Hochuli. Seriously, we click through all the games each Sunday on League Pass just to see which one he's reffing. She's obsessed. SIGH...

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posted by Gil at 9:48 AM

Lygerman's only my favorite superhero

Sometimes this blog writes itself. Othertimes, the official VM brother and the official VM fiancee team up and take care of it for me. To wit:

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posted by Gil at 2:13 PM

Happy Veterans Day!

Here's some contradictory advice from some WWI vets on how to live a long and happy life!

Thanks for all service you've done (or are currently doing) for our country!

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posted by Gil at 9:41 AM

One more thing

I forgot to mention: I had a run of plane trips in which I bumped into second (or third) tier athletes or retired guys. Hasn't happened in a few years, but I may have started a new streak last night (or this morning, depending on your pov): Neil O'Donnell, quarterback for the Superbowl-losing Pittsburgh Steelers of 1996, was a few seats behind me on Flight of the Damned.

When I saw him in the terminal at Nashville (6'3" white guy, talking with his wife/girlfriend about an exec at CBS Sports), I figured he was somebody, but it turns out I was wrong.

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posted by Gil at 9:59 AM

I almost kissed the floor of the jetway

The flight was insanely arduous. Delayed at the gate (plane couldn't make it out of Newark for a while, due to weather). Delayed on the tarmac (landing windows weren't available in Newark). Stacked in a holding pattern in awful crosswinds (hint: don't put small, light airplanes in holding patterns during bad weather). Turbulence that had the stewardess talking in the shaky-voice over the intercom.

As a bonus, the monorail at Newark wasn't functioning, so I got to walk over to the parking garage in the rain at 2:30 in the morning, more than four hours late. I'm gonna go to bed. Good to be home.

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posted by Gil at 3:35 AM

Wendung

(Here's something I tried writing when I was sitting around in Madrid last week. Since I'm sitting around in an airport, I figure I'll post it and you can try to make sense of it.)

I saw my buddy Tina last Monday in NYC. She and two friends were visiting from Australia, and this led to my doing the one thing I know I should never do: drink with Australian men.

Yes, dear reader, I spent that evening at the Hi Life, knocking down G&Ts while the main songwriter for Anal Traffic paced me with pints of Stella Artois. Fortunately, no Flatliners were involved, but we had such a nice vibe at the bar that we bailed on our original plan of heading around the corner to my favorite Thai place in the city. We ended up meeting there a few nights later for dinner, before they left NYC for an appointment with a roller-coaster in Sandusky, OH.

In all, it was an entertaining evening, catching up with Tina and shooting the breeze with Paul, a prototype for campy gay men, while their friend Ruben (a Spaniard) stared at us, relatively incomprehending.

I met Tina during my trip to New Zealand two years ago. We had a great time not taking anything seriously for those two weeks, and stayed in touch since. If you're interested in reading about that trip, click back on the November & December 2003 archives. Someday, I'll get all my pictures moved over to Flickr, and that'll make it easier for you guys to see some of the wonderful photos I took over there.

As great as it was to catch up with Tina and make a new (and impossible-to-take-seriously) friend in Paul, the conversation also was a sort of counterbalance/antidote for the previous evening.

That night, I went to my friend K's apartment in NYC after dropping the offical VM fiancee off at her apartment (she's moving in with me in a few weeks, so our Sunday ritual of bailing on the late football games and trying to avoid the bridge/tunnel traffic will come to an end). K is in broadcast journalism school, and wanted me to come by so she could interview me about a "turning point" in my life. It was mainly a technical exercise in setting up lighting, audio, etc., and less about interviewing.

Or maybe it was supposed to involve her interviewing technique, but that's not how it worked out. She didn't exactly make it clear, so I figured I'd go with the me-and-a-camera format, talk to the red light, and evolve out some conversation with myself. It was nice, being unabashedly self-centered, insofar as I didn't know if I was supposed to be talking with K or not. Sure, a lot of you will contend that I'm pretty self-centered anyway, but it was my job this time, so that made it better.

Anyway, I just rambled on forever. How on earth she's going to cut it down to 60-90 seconds, I can't imagine.

I know, I know: Get to the turning point!

(Actually, just writing that phrase reminds me of the time in college that a girlfriend slipped Rilke's poem "Wendung" under my door. The night we first hooked up, I read her a poor translation of "Archaischer Torso Apollos" on a bench at Mt. Holyoke College. Weeks later, she was mad over something and she put that poem under my door. I think it was all about a dark, brooding, self-centered guy who is too dark, brooding, and self-centered for his own good. In a hotel. I'll have to reread it sometime. They're my virtual memories, so deal, okay?)

K asked me to help her with the assignment a few days earlier, and it got me thinking about turning points. Amy & K both thought I'd talk about 9.11, and it's a pretty easy conclusion to draw. I thought about it, and about the death of my "surrogate" dad, and the time I saw my buddy Drake in the ICU in Philadelphia, and my dad the night after his heart surgery. All those moments affected me pretty profoundly, personally and historically, but I thought, "They're all about death and suffering, and that's not who I am."

So I told K that the turning point in my life was the two weeks I spent in New Zealand, and I talked about that for her camera.

Thing was, I was in a pretty bad emotional state when I went on the trip, having been dumped a few weeks before. So I spent some time over there being dark and brooding, etc., before I had a big realization: no one cared.

See, what struck me early in the trip was the immensity of everything. Partly, it was the fact that I'd traveled nearly halfway around the world, chasing nothing more substantial than some black-and-white images from a comic book. I'd already been feeling torn to pieces over this breakup, alternating between rage and self-pity, but my absolute distance from my life was about to make everything make sense.

What I thought was, "If you take everyone in the southern hemisphere, and ask them all, 'Do you know who Gil Roth is?', there might be five people who'd say yes."

And then I thought, "Why are you acting like they have to know all of your backstory?"

And then I stopped.

I wrote about this a little last year, on the anniversary of the trip, and it's held up pretty well.

So I told K's camera about the trip, about the sense of uprootedness-unto-freedom (reminds me of college again; this time the classes on Heidegger), of watching those cares spiral down the drain (counter-clockwise, what with that coriolis effect), of coming back here and soon after meeting the love of my life, and of being able to meet love like that, of being ready to be happy.

I hadn't formulated those thoughts before, so I puzzled through them and others as the camera rolled. Unfortunately, I think K was hoping for something more death-oriented.

She started asking about 9.11 and the tattoo on my arm ("9.11.01 Never Forget"). She wanted to know what I think about now when I look at the tattoo, since I'm a different person than the guy who got it.

That's still a tough question. There are all those sad points, both personal and historic, in life. I explained that I've found joy now, found myself in joy, but that doesn't make for great copy, I admit.

So I tried explaining how my take on 9.11 hasn't exactly changed, but has deepened, grown more complex, filled with more emotions. Like life.

I talked about the experience of watching Ric Burns' New York documentary this summer, with its 3-hour conclusion about the World Trade Center. Amy & I watched that last installment a week before the anniversary of the attacks, and I meant to write about it here, but I was so darned busy.

Now I'm sitting in a Madrid hotel room, waiting for my coworkers to show up so we can go get paellas. So here we go.

There's been a lot said and written about the Twin Towers, what they meant to people, what an eyesore they were, how much they meant to the skyline. But beyond all the anecdotes and theories about them, Ric Burns managed to get a story from a guy who had a unique perspective on the towers: Philippe Petit.

Philippe's perspective would be from about 110 storeys up, balanced on a tightrope. I knew there'd been a Frenchman who tightroped between the towers in the '70s, but I didn't know anything about his story. Burns let it take up about 15-20 minutes of the documentary, and it was all worth it.

See, the thing is, I had always assumed that the tightrope-walker was a pro who decided that the Twin Towers were his greatest challenge. Instead, to hear Petit tell the story, he was just a guy with a toothache, waiting for his dentist's appointment, when he read about the construction of the towers in the late 1960s. He knew then and there that he had to walk between them.

But the thing is, he'd never walked on a tightrope before. He learned the skill and developed it for a few years, so that he could walk between the towers.

The documentary covered all sorts of details: How do you get a tightrope across the span? How fast are the winds up there? How do you find this out without tipping anyone off that you're getting ready to walk across the towers? It's a remarkable story, and I wasn't expecting to hear such joy in Petit's voice as he told it. It was the tone of someone who knew exactly what he was supposed to do, and doesn't have any regrets at accomplishing it.

The loss of the towers saddened him, of course, but he managed to balance that against the utter joy he had while walking along that rope a dozen times.

My favorite photo from that story is one the police took of Petit up on the tightrope. He's lying on his back, one foot on the rope, the other across his upraised knee, balancing beam across his chest. He's weightless, at play higher than anyone had ever thought to play. He was home.

Now, when I think of 9.11, all my horror can balance itself against the image of Petit in his heaven.

I tried explaining this to the camera and K, but it kept coming out wrong. Just like now. I'm afraid someone will read this and say that I'm tossing out 3,000 lives because of the absurdities of some Frenchman. I don't know how to show that I'm not. The images of that day still leave me wrecked. But now there's also this notion that the towers mean more than what Al Qaeda turned them into. Petit, in his absurd French way, made me realize that the towers were the place that he became complete.

So that's what I'm talking about when I talk about leavening sadness with joy. K didn't get it, I don't think. When she e-mailed me a day later, she wrote about my "lifelong sadness," even though I thought so much of the interview and our subsequent conversation was about joy.

You want to talk about this some more?

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posted by Gil at 9:45 PM

The waiting

Bad-ass thunderstorms up in NJ/NY, so my flight back home is delayed. We're waiting for the plane to come in from there, dump people, refuel, and get us home. It's a little Embraer 145, one of those 50-seaters, so I'm not looking forward to the bumpy flight home. Which will land sometime way after midnight, instead of our scheduled 10pm.

Also, I realized during lunch today that I actually hadn't set foot outside of Cracker Biodome in the 48 hours since I'd checked in on Monday. It was another 3 hours before I stepped outside, to get in a cab to the airport. So, not much Nashville-ing for me.

On the plus side, the gift area had a copy of that Sam Cooke biography I want, so I just picked that up. And the wireless hookup is $6.95 for 24 hours, so that ain't bad.

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posted by Gil at 8:45 PM

"We all broke the dam..."

Bwah-hah-hah!

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posted by Gil at 8:59 AM

Much gnashing of teeth, rending of flesh, etc.

Before I left for Nashville yesterday morning, I said to myself, "Don't bring the camera. You're not going out anywhere in the evening after the conference, and it'd just be one more thing to account for."

Now it's obvious that I was a jet-lagged wreck. How could I have failed to bring the one device that would provide irrefutable evidence that this resort/hotel/conference center is in fact Cracker Disney? Why hadn't I looked at the site's own description?

Under majestic, climate-controlled glass atriums, you'll be surrounded by nine acres of lush indoor gardens, winding rivers and pathways, and sparkling waterfalls where you can unwind, explore, shop, dine, and be entertained to your heart's content. Highlights include a 44-foot waterfall, laser-light and fountain shows, and tours aboard our Delta Flatboats - right inside the hotel.

and thought, "There needs to be a visual narrative for this"? You, dear reader, can only take my word for it that the entry gates to this majestic edifice are flanked by Cracker Barrel and Shoney's.

Moreover, even my coworkers don't believe that, while my hotel room does possesss a king-sized bed, that bed is actually a Murphy bed, mounted into the wall and made to look like an armoire! I'm not inclined to chalk that up to anything particularly "southron" so much as flat-out surreal. You'll have to keep a picture in your mind's eyes of that horrible realization that my bed was hidden away vertically, followed by a Poe-like scene in which I was nearly crushed by the descent of said bed.

Oh, with the regrets, dear reader. I'll try to make it up to you with a field trip to Cracker Barrel before I leave.

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posted by Gil at 7:51 AM

Away!

Off to Nashville, where I likely won't see the outside of the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center until I'm in a cab back to the airport on Wednesday!

Huh-huh-huh. . . He said, "Gaylord. . ."

Speaking of which, the ultimate Beavis & Butt-Head DVD collection comes out tomorrow!

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posted by Gil at 7:44 AM

Home!

Made it! It's an extra hour of air-time because of headwinds, and the flight was loaded with chattering, chair-reclining Spaniards, who have ascended to the top of my ranking of pushy people. I know everyone says Americans are the worst, but these sons of bitches really took the cake this week, right up to pushing past me at the security check-in.

Anyway, I realized I did sell the Prado short. There are a bunch of great pieces in it that I'll try to write about when I get settled, but there were SO many crucifixions and virgin-and-child paintings that the overall vibe kinda numbed me.

But I'm home! For 40 hours! Then it's on to Nashville, where I hope they speak English better than they did in Madrid!

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posted by Gil at 5:31 PM

El Sueno De Jamon Produce Monstruos

Went to the Prado today, but it was pretty boring. There was a TON of religious (Christian) art, and it got tedious after a while. On the plus side, I got to see Bosch's Garden of Delights triptych, which is mindblowing. And Goya's "black paintings" were in their own section. I'd never really seen Goya's paintings (just some of his etchings), and this collection was fantastic. His religious art was dull, in my opinion.

The Prado has a single Rembrandt, Artemisa, which sucked ass. Fortunately, the Thyssen-Bornemisza had much better stuff in general, and its Rembrandt self-portrait was much better, too. I realized that I've become a little bit of an art-snob, but having the Frick & the Met so close by, and having spent a day in the Louvre, I realized that Madrid's art-offerings aren't all that.

Anyway, I'm heading home tomorrow, so I doubt I'll post again before then. Next missive may be from Nashville, scary as that sounds.

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posted by Gil at 10:01 AM

Things are different

Walking through an electronics store here in Madrid yesterday, I noticed that the face on the box of the NBA Live 2K6 videogame is native Spaniard Pau Gasol.

The clerk told me that Gasol actually helped design this year's version of the game, now, when the score is close in the 4th quarter, it crashes.

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posted by Gil at 9:54 AM

Update

Sorry to be outta touch, dear readers! The internet connection at the hotel is dodgier than I thought. Plus, I've been working at the conference and then dining with clients in the evenings.

But the conference is all over, so it's time for sightseeing and souvenir-shopping! Pictures will come when I'm back in civilization, and not this poor-service, non-English-speaking backwater!

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posted by Gil at 9:23 AM