I’m now working for Project Playlist. It’s a small free-music startup company located in downtown Palo Alto. I’m pretty excited about the potential of this little venture. I can’t talk about things that are going to be happening, but suffice it to say that I’m having fun.
Check out my crazy playlist:
I went out to lunch today at a little Mongolian BBQ place on El Camino. I don’t usually go alone, and I don’t usually go on a Friday at lunchtime, but today I did.
As it turned out, they were so crowded that they asked me to sit with another single diner. It was actually quite nice. The guy’s name was Mark and he works for EMC. Didn’t get a last name, but probably should have.
Anyway, it’s nice to know that I still have the social wherewithal to step up, introduce myself, talk about whatever, and part pleasantly. We actually talked a lot about “growing up” in Silicon Valley and what our careers have taught us.
It’s been a long time since I had a “single-serving friend”, and I enjoyed it immensely.
So, I’ve written before that I enjoyed reading the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer.
And while the books were entertaining and told a good story, for me, their translation to the screen was less than satisfying. I watched, and as a fanboi, enjoyed the adaptation, but knew that anyone else in the theater was likely to say “WTF?”.
Here’s some data to show my “zoinks!” moment.
Here’s the T-Meter:
And here are the customer ratings for iTMS.
Now, 4.5 stars translates to a T-Meter rating of about 90%. It seems that the demographic that rents or buys from iTMS is full of fanbois. Now, it could be that it’s getting a bump because it’s one of the first movies you can buy in HD on iTMS, but I’m suspicious.
The beauty of open source is that someone comes up with a kind of cool way to save some time, like this guy, who just wanted to see which git branch was active in the location he was looking at.
Then, this guy took that piece and extended it to include the git branch dirty status.
Then, someone posted it to GitHub.
Then, it exploded into a flurry of gist forks, all with small changes of varying value.
This is such a beautiful example of “almost evolution” that I’m happy every time I think about it. This is how good memes (or genes) express themselves and flourish.
OK, here’s another one:
Ingredients:
Directions:
Wash the prawns to make sure they’re free of dirt and then dry them off a little with paper towels.
Cut green onions into segments about 3 inches long, then in half lengthwise so that you have a bunch of half-pipes.
Chop garlic into small chunks.
Heat wok with 2 tbsp of vegetable oil under highest possible heat.
Throw in the garlic, yellow onions, and red curry paste when the oil is just beginning to smoke. Mix around until the onions are soft.
Throw in the clean, dried prawns and the green onions. Stir vigorously to make sure that the prawns cook evenly.
Toss in some salt and pepper (1/4 tsp each is probably enough).
When the prawns approach doneness (when they’re almost completely orange), throw in the ketchup and keep tossing to coat the prawns. The ketchup should start cooking down and carmelizing immediately.
Cook another 30 seconds or so and then pour the dish off into a serving bowl.
Serve with white rice.
As promised, the second installment is Beef with Broccoli. As before, quantities are estimates.
Ingredients:
Directions:
Slice the beef into flat rectangles no more than 1 inch on a side. Place in bowl with rice wine, sesame oil, soy sauce, salt, and pepper. Toss to coat and set aside.
Cut apart the broccoli, reduce to florets no bigger than 1 inch diameter. If you’re bold, you’ll cut up the stem as well.
Open a can of bamboo shoots and drain off the liquid. If you are feeling industrious, you can slice each bamboo shoot slice into matchstick-sized sticks.
Dice up the garlic and slice up the green onions and put them onto a small plate.
Put the broccoli into a steamer and start it going. You’ll want to take it out when it’s bright green, but before it finishes cooking.
Prepare a little corn starch mixture with about 1-2 tsp of water.
Heat up 2 tbsp. vegetable oil in a wok over highest possible heat. Throw in the garlic and scallions when the oil starts to smoke. Work it around for a few seconds until the scallions start to brown.
Throw in the beef and stir fry it until it’s cooked through. Remove to a bowl and let it rest.
DO NOT CLEAN THE WOK.
Heat up another 2 tbsp of vegetable oil and throw in the bamboo shoots to cook. While that’s sizzling, drain the broccoli from the steamer and throw it in as well.
Cook the bamboo and broccoli until both are getting soft, but still holding together.
Dump the beef and its juices back into the wok.
Stir fry the whole dish vigorously for a minute. Add some soy sauce to make it brown and add a little flavor.
Make a hole in the center of the wok so that you can see the juice at the bottom. If there’s not enough, you can consider adding a bit of chicken broth. Pour in a little of the corn starch and mix quickly. Toss the entire dish to coat evenly, it should give a nice glossy coating to everything.
Remove dish to a serving bowl and serve with white rice.
Jamie has asked me to write up some of my mom’s Chinese food recipes. So, here’s the first installment.
Please note, quantities are guesses. I do it by feel, but you get the idea.
Ingredients:
Slice the chicken breasts lengthwise into about 4 strips each, then cut each strip into 1/2 inch chunks. Put these into a small bowl. Add the rice wine, sesame oil, and some salt and pepper. Toss to coat and just let it sit.
Chop up the zucchini by first cutting them into 4 long strips and then cutting each strip into chunks of 1 cm width. Put this into a second bowl.
Chop up 1/2 of a yellow onion into 1 cm square chunks and put it in the bowl with the zucchini.
Dice up the garlic and put it on a little plate. Chop up the green onion into 1/2 cm rings and put it on the plate with the garlic.
Prepare a 1 tsp solution of corn starch with 1-2 tsp of water. It should be runny, not thick.
Now, heat up a wok with 2 tbsp of the vegetable oil. Use the highest heat possible. Wait until the oil is starting to smoke and then throw in the garlic, green onions, and red curry paste. Mix it around quickly until the green onions start to look brown on the edges.
Throw in the chicken on top and stir-fry it until cooked through. Dump it out into a new, clean bowl and let it sit.
DO NOT CLEAN THE WOK.
Add another 2 tbsp of vegetable oil and let it heat up, then throw in the zucchini and onions. Stir fry this until the zucchini are soft.
Return the chicken from the bowl to the wok and then add the cashew nuts. Stir-fry the entire dish together in the wok and evaluate the fluid situation at the bottom of the wok. If it seems like there’s too little, you may want to add some water or chicken broth. If there’s too much, you will probably want to spoon some out and try to get it to be about a few tablespoons worth.
Make a hole in the stuff in the middle of the wok so you can see the juice. Add a little corn starch solution and mix quickly. Then toss all of the dish again. It should get a nice sheen to it.
Dump the finished dish into a serving bowl. Serve with white rice.
President Obama hasn’t even been in office 100 hours yet, and he’s already made some executive orders that roll back some of the nightmare orders that Bush made.
After the inauguration and speech, I felt so happy that Obama made it into office without any “October surprise” or “Unexpected invasion of Iran”, and I find it humorous, but serious that the “muffing of the presidential oath” was immediately and privately corrected the next day with Chief Justice Roberts in the White House.
But today, I see real governance taking over and he’s making a lot of the decisions and ordering change that I have been wanting for 4-8 years. This is huge, because it’s a movement back towards the Constitutional rule of law.
I not only hope to see more of these sorts of things in the future, I am now expecting a judicious dismantling of the Bush-era fascist policies.
My hat’s off to you President Obama. You’ve made me feel like America is actually going to return to its core values.
So, here’s the chart of my diet over the last few weeks. Can you spot the anomaly? It was a good meal though.
Making some good progress here. This is how December turned out:
and how January is shaping up:
