This is a jar of store-brand whole black pepper.



1. Why a shaker top? What kind of deranged individual shakes whole black peppercorns onto their food? I can think of two recipes* that call for whole black peppercorns, and when I make them I usually just pour them out of the top of the pepper grinder.

2. The copy on the label which is probably too blurry to read, says

These are the highly regarded Tellicherry peppercorns from India...

You don't mean the highly regarded Tellicherry peppercorns from India?! You mean the ones everyone has been talking about down at the Pepper Club? You mean the ones that won Pepper Spectator's most prestigious "Highly Regarded" award in 2003 and 2004? Wow, that must be some pepper.

- Z

_______________

• Corned beef, and poached salmon.

You can make hot dogs in the Toast-R-Oven. If I'da known this ten years ago, college would have been very different.

- Z

...or, an easy way to waste one hour, three minutes, and 49 seconds of your life.

There's actually a lot of pretty cool stuff on YouTube. But how come when I'm bored all I can find is Japanese gameshows?

First we've got some Scottish dude with a pianozookelele singing Europe's 'The Final Countdown.'



Which led me to these Latvian dudes rocking out with their cellos out. [Yes I've heard of Apocalyptica.]



Here's some other Latvian dudes for whom walking is just too boring. [fast forward two minutes]



And then I spent like a couple hours watching Flight of the Conchords videos.



This guy over here isn't on YouTube but he listened to 'Dancing Queen' on Repeat One for an entire four-hour road trip -- and then got stuck in traffic for another hour. I don't know why.



- Z

_______________
You wanted Japanese gameshows? Like for reals? Fine, here's Marshmallow Eater, What a Cool We Are, Silent Library, cat weightlifting, Door Runner, and Brain Wall keeping the treadmill and ice water industries in business. I can only imagine what kind of poor life decisions turn you into a recurring character on these shows.

I was feeling adventurous last week so I managed to install Windows Vista Ultimate on my MacBook. It's certainly got its share of annoyances but I don't understand why everybody seems to hate it so much.

Installation was much less painful than xp. In particular, that first software update after a fresh install was a hundred times easier- only had to update & reboot once rather than a half dozen times.

Graphics performance: I've got a totally weak Intel 945 'integrated graphics chipset.' I'm running the full Aero interface and, weirdly enough, it hasn't exploded yet.

Memory consumption: I've got 1GB, the minimum recommended. Memory usage is pretty high but it seems roughly comparable to Mac OS X. If I were doing more than testing websites I'd probably be more concerned.

This is a weird one: it keeps 'asking for permission.' When you click 'more details' all it shows is a UUID. I know from context what it's doing, but seriously people. In general, though, I've noticed much fewer weird geeky error messages than xp.

Graphics design: one thumb up for improved controls and icons, one thumb down for the over-the-top window decorations. I like how the folder icons are stuffed with the actual icons of the folder's contents.

Graphics technology: much improved over xp. Text is super-crisp, and that frosted glass effect, while annoying, is pretty impressive.

Screen savers: What happened to the series of tubes?

- Z

but I really like this houndstooth pattern. Apparently 217 other people do, too. I guess it attracts the kind of person who would have the tenacity to look through sixty four pages of themes but then totally just give up.

Last night, it was potatoes. Tonight, my nonpartisan campaign coverage hits musical endorsements. At the event where John McCain brought out Daddy Yankee to announce his endorsement, somebody asked Mr Yankee what his song 'Gasolina' is about. His answer: 'energy independence.'

Meanwhile Barack Obama's got Bruce Springsteen, Jay-Z, and, depending on your interpretation of this runaway inflatable pig, Roger Waters.



But now that we've finally got a black guy from Chicago on the ticket, where's all the blues singers?



Wow, I wish I hadn't seen that. He's got Al Gore rhythm.

- Z