Thursday night we were invited over to a coworker's house for a cocktail party and had a wonderful time. Sitting on the table among all their decadent homemade desserts was a bowl of Russian chocolates, sticking out like Roger Moore at a Sean Connery convention. Forget the chocolate-raspberry torte, I'm going straight for the 'Krasnyj Oktyabr.' Perhaps some day I should learn Russian, as that would have raised a bright red flag. Rule for living: confectioners should not be named after Communist revolutions, and Red October is no exception. The only word on any of the wrappers I could puzzle out was 'Konfety,' but I guess it actually means 'candy.' Go figure. Here's their full catalog, if you're interested .

Alenka

OK, he didn't have any of these but I really dig the illustration. You get an idea of the challenges here: there's no possible way of knowing what's inside based solely on the wrapper. 'Alenka,' by the way, is a character in an obscure Cossack myth which translates best as 'hell-baby.' Beats me why you'd name a candy after that.


Zolotoe sufle apelsinovoe
'The Golden Orange Souffle'

This was an unusually informative wrapper, as was the one with a big pineapple on it. Considering that the places where you find oranges and pineapples growing are pretty much the opposite of Moscow, even I didn't have enough faith in the Russian science program to reproduce their flavor. Next!

Rakobye shejki

Thank you, Google Language Tools - you bring me more joy than you could ever possibly imagine.

Korovka
'Little Cow'

We all agreed this one was definitely not chocolate. Somebody said, 'maybe it's like a Bit-O-Honey.' Sure, or maybe it's like granulated Bit-O-Honey with a strong margarine aftertaste. Funny, I never felt that was missing from the original.

Krasnaya shapochka
'Red Cap'

You know how a little while ago they started making biodegradable packing peanuts out of soy? They don't really taste like much, and it turns out that melting a Swiss Cake Roll over them doesn't really improve the situation.

Bolshebnaya flejta
'Magic Flute'

This was the only one I couldn't finish. I'll cut the suspense: it is chocolate filled with sweetened wet sand. I said as much, and although I couldn't see this being in any way compelling, (e:dragonlady7) wanted a bite. I don't know if she didn't believe me or what. Then the host came by and asked what it tasted like. 'Wet sand,' we said. He took another piece from the bowl, bit into it and exclaimed, 'that's astonishing!' [but not in a good way]. He theorized that in the depths of a very long, very dark St Petersburg winter, perhaps this might remind you of that vacation you took on the Crimean, when you got sand in your teeth. Maybe that's a pleasant memory for you, and maybe this candy is all you need to take you back to that special time. I sure hope so, because otherwise this is some really ill shit.

- Z

Out at the bar last night, Extreme Cagefighting came on the TV. I'd never really watched it before. A couple dudes in a cage throw a couple punches, then they start rolling around on the ground together. The bartender came up, looked at the TV for a minute and said huh, looks like prison sex. Then he changed the channel.



Chita Rivera is a lover and a fighter. She does this thing every morning when I get out of the shower, where she'll be sitting on my towel all cute-like, and when I go to pet her belly she kicks my naked wet ass. She'll pull my hand in with her front claws and bite my fingers, all the while kicking my forearm with her back claws. This is not cool. So I'm really proud that I managed to come up with a kitty submission hold where she can't scratch me long enough that I can get my towel. If I put my hand across her chest right under her front legs, she can't reach me with her front legs, it's too high up for her back legs, and too close to her chin to bite. [nb: This also makes her really mad.]

- Z

So locally it looks like the Obamists got out earlier with their campaign signs but the Clintonites used their late arrival to their advantage - all up and down Delaware Ave there's a Clinton sign posted three inches directly in front of every Obama sign. Do people really look at these signs and say, you know what? I was going to vote for Obama but I see someone's stuck a Clinton sign in front of it, so maybe she'll be a better leader of the free world. Or, my favorite, there's always the dense cluster outside the polling place, as close as is legally possible, because you'd get out of your snuggy bed, put on your coat and shoes, leave the house, and go to your assigned polling place without having already made your decision.

They're saying that since I'm not registered as a Democrat or Republican that I can't vote in the primary today. Fuck that shit, I say.

Everybody enjoy a good protest? Says something weird about our generation that we're protesting against Tom Cruise harder than we're protesting against the war, but I can't disagree that he's a total asshat. It's close enough to RPCI, you guys should stop by and hang out. If we covered their protest, do you think they'd stop hanging out in our office?

From: buffalo anon <buffaloanon@gmail.com>
Subject: Demonstration against Scientology in Buffalo

I am writing to request that you cover an upcoming demonstration against of the Church of Scientology in Buffalo. The demonstration will be held on February 10th at 11AM at their Main St location in coordination with with similar protests outside of every church of Scientology around the world.

More information regarding this day of protest can be found in recent media coverage in the Guardian and the Economist.





I feel that the protest is especially relevant to Western New York since it is here in 2003 that the Perkins tragedy occurred.



The Church of Scientology is a dangerous cult that destroys lives, tears apart families, and can be harmful to its members mental and physical health. Church members are not allowed to remain in personal contact with anyone who speaks against their church or their founder or who seeks medical care they do not permit, a rule which has destroyed families as people end contact with their parents, children, and siblings in order to remain in the cult.

Again, I ask that you consider covering both the global movement against Scientology as well as the local protest on Sunday.

Regards,
Anonymous

- Z

Run, don't walk to your local record store and buy this album


Attendance at the QCRG game last night was insane. The rink was as packed as it was last time, even with the addition of an entire row of bleachers and a few hundred seats.

Dearest reader, isn't it about time you started a new dangerous hobby?



Yes, it is.

- Z

So I come home from work, and I'm barely in the door, and the phone starts ringing. (e:dragonlady7) picks up, expecting my mom. Nope!

This toolbox over here called me up at like 11:45 France Time to say that he didn't like my little penis joke [which is now accompanied by a disclaimer of liability]. He would like me to let you know that he has an important reputation and several very rich clients. He also uses the word 'American' the way some people use the words 'faggot,' say, or 'nigger.' He's a real classy representative from the Parisian tourist industry, see.

I couldn't get a word in edgewise, or I would have told him that I work for a newspaper with over a quarter million readers, and we're relatively desparate for articles for our Valentine's Day issue. Considering the weird fuckers who read our paper, I bet there's at least one reader who would totally get off on being seduced by this guy here:



Fact is, if I were the kind of guy with EUR16,000 (USD23,000) to burn, there is nothing better to spend it on than getting an enormous wang sky-written over the Eiffel Tower.

- Z

I received a spam this afternoon from a ridiculous company that will tell your lover you love 'er. I clicked the and read it. We thought it would be hysterical if instead of 'Dearest Marsha ... will you marry me?' it was 'Dearest Marsha ... will you give me a blow job?' I then went through the website and replaced every occurrence of 'declaration of love' with 'penis' as it is my patriotic duty.

Say 'I Love You' in the Company of Columbo
Hand in hand you'll visit a distinguished castle and meet the famous Lieutenant Columbo who'll head an amazing investigation which will conclude with your penis...

- Z

Had I even left? Here's a brain dump of the last couple days.

ITEM ONE: Food.

(e:dragonlady7) wrote about the things we have eaten recently. I will distill the knowledge:

1a. Chocolate toffee pancakes. Holy poop I thought I would be able to handle these but I had three and passed the fuck out. It was like eating chocolate cake for breakfast.

1b. We had some shrimp penne primavera last night that was very tasty but I'm really proud of my particular component, the shrimp. First off, Weggies has uncooked peeled/deveined shrimp which is so genius that I can't understand why you can't find them elsewhere. Second off, these shrimp are so easy, tasty, and aromatic, and you can probably put them in anything:

Get a wok or something, and put in 2 Tbsp each of peanut oil and dry sherry. Grate one clove of garlic into it. Heat that up until it socks you in the nose, the garlic looks tasty, and the sherry is reduced a little bit.

Some people are going to say look man, you can't mix the oil and sherry like that because the sherry will keep the oil from heating up. Maybe they're right, but shrimp cook so fast it can't make a difference. If they keep bugging you just make them stop and take a deep breath. Mmmm. Then kick them the hell out of your kitchen.

Add the shrimp and fry them until they're pink all over, not a second longer. Then, do whatever you want with them. (e:dragonlady7) used the garlicky shrimp-oil for flavoring the alfredo sauce, and that was a good idea.


THING TWO: A lament on HTML parsers

One of the things I do for the QCRG AV Club is to get the photos people take at the game and collect them in one place. Naturally people put their photos wherever they feel most comfortable, so that means that out of four photographers, two have used flickr, one has used Photobucket, and one has used MySpace Pics. I think 'download album' as a zip file is a pretty obvious feature but it seems the people in power don't agree. Photobucket at least has an RSS feed for each album. flickr does not have RSS feeds, but they have a pretty nice API.

MySpace Pics has neither [but did you even have to ask?] which means automated form submission & HTML scraping, with cookies. Enter Python: the urllib2 module has optional support for temporary or persistent cookies, and the HTMLParser module does a hell of a job on HTML 'as deployed' [which is to say: the opposite of well-formed & valid XHTML]. HTML4 is such a hugely popular format, and lexically speaking it's not significantly messier than XHTML ... it makes me wonder why HTML parsing libraries are nowhere near as ubiquitous as XML parsers.


THING THREE: Location-based services

I've believed for a while that mobile phones are theoretically capable of locating themselves without GPS by triangulating on cell towers. The new "Locate" button in iPhone Maps answers the question: yes, but it's not real accurate. Oddly enough, it seems to be more accurate where there are fewer towers. At home, it puts me on a side street within walking distance, and the margin of error goes from Colvin to Starin, which is not too bad. When I'm at work, it puts me within walking distance at Roswell Park, but the margin of error goes from Fort Erie on the west to Bailey Ave on the east, all the way up to Linden Ave on the north. That's like 85% of the city. [When I'm at the rink it puts me in the river somewhere.]


THING FOUR: Office 2008

I haven't bought it yet but I probably will eventually. The Home edition is only $150, which I think is pretty reasonable. The Standard edition costs $400, but as near as I can tell the only difference is in Entourage's support for Exchange Server and scriptability. An Exchange client is also built into Apple Mail, so are those two features really worth $250? The Standard license is also upgradeable, but the upgrade is still $90 more expensive than a full license for the Home edition.

And then there's this 'Expression Media' that is part of the Special Media edition. Is this different than the media databases that are built into iPhoto or iTunes, or Adobe Bridge? Is it really worth $100?

I think somebody messed up on the pricing for this one, is all I'm saying.


- Z

(e:dragonlady7) bought me a framed color print of this comic for the wall in our office. We now have the kewliez office in Kenmore.

My buddy Chris had a small get-together last night for New Year's. Man, we're geezers. Drove way the fuck out to Lancaster, played half a game of beer pong, watched the ball drop, and by 12:45 I was zonked out on an air mattress. My kinda people.

Roller derby ate my life. If I don't see any peeps at the rink on Saturday I'll disembowel myself in the game room and play Skee-Ball with my still-beating spleen. Could be fun.

- Z

I can't help but think that this whole tradition of giving gifts at Christmas perhaps adds more stress to the holiday season than it should. I agree it's a very special thing to give somebody something they wanted but would not have otherwise gotten for themselves. I agree it is polite to reciprocate, and rude not to. I agree that this is not a time to be selfish with one's time or money. I care deeply about many people but have totally flaked out on gifts for all but the most essential. I was not able to devote as much time or concentration to gift-giving as it deserves, and instead sent a big Fuck You to the people most important to me. I feel absolutely rotten about it. Mea culpa.

To my coworkers, who have become my friends, I would not be at Artvoice if you weren't.

To the people who make up (e:strip), you have created a fun, eclectic, warped, and thoroughly enjoyable community just by being yourselves. It has been a pleasure and I wish I could be more involved.

To my friends, the fact that we have never really exchanged Christmas gifts is perhaps the greatest gift of all.

To my family, relax. I got you something.

To (e:dragonlady7), you'd think after spending so much of our lives together that I'd know exactly what you want. I don't, but I've got some ideas. We'll talk later.

Merry Christmas, everyone. Until next year,
- Z

[The Culinary Institute of America]

The real reason you learn to make sauce Mornay ['cheese sauce'] is not for eggs Benedict, Welsh rabbit, or potatoes au gratin. The real reason you learn to make sauce Mornay is that you bought some foolishly expensive herbed, veined goat cheese to impress your girlfriend's parents at Thanksgiving, which they politely ate but did not finish, and now that it's nearly Christmas with no food in sight, you're fucking hungry and you don't care whether that's a 'delicate rind' or 'disgusting crust of mold.'

Sauce Mornay: because you paid too much for that cheese to admit it's gone bad.

- Z