I’ve had several triggers for this thought recently. One was an NPR show where they were talking with an Alaskan Eskimo who was sad about the youth not sitting quietly in the dark eating blubber and that they were instead using computers and cellphones and embracing the future. Another was my recent link to the 8 simple rules for the home kitchen. A last was a crazy woman walking her dog through our city neighborhood… barefoot and trying to think how she justifies that.

It comes down to this: I don’t understand people who mournfully look back to the past and regret the loss of traditions or skills which aren’t needed in the modern world.

Looks like my paid time is finally running out. I know they won’t answer but I sent it anyway.

(click for the full size image)

Wife linked me this. I really love popup books.

My workday is going by so slowly that I was actually pleased when I realized I had to go to the bathroom.

Something to do.

Yay!

The wife linked me this a couple days ago. It took me a little while to figure out what was going on. Apparently cat owners are attaching lightweight digital cameras to their pets and rigging them to take pictures automatically. The result is a kind of photo blog of life from the perspective of a cat.

I was using Blix, but it hasn’t been updated in a very long time and that means it’s not entirely compatible with the version of Wordpress I’m using. Specifically the widgets weren’t working.

I’ve chosen this one as a basis to work from. It’s going to need some work though.

Edit: On second thought… it sucks. What kind of formatting is that?

Maybe I can edit Blix to get sidebars & widgets working.

I went out to lunch with some coworkers recently. While we were sitting there gossiping about work, complaining about the usual politics and laughing about everything else one of my coworkers received a phone call.

It was her doctor.

She missed her appointment.

She forgot about her appointment.

Nothing bad, just a missed routine appointment.

It ruined her day.

Thanks to Flickr I’m totally learning new languages. My favorite though was when it told me how to say hello in Hawaiian… Aloha Spasticon!

Found this excellent article via tastespotting. The picture caught my attention and I was initially a little frustrated about the fact that the picture had very little to do with the article, but in the end the article turned out to be worth it.

Cast iron is inexpensive but excellent kitchen gear.

The article covers 8 points which I paraphrase here. You should go read the full article though.

1. Use better salt and pepper, and use them judiciously. The one thing I don’t agree with here is that he suggests salting at the end. Use salt and pepper judiciously, but definitely don’t save them for the end. You need to be salting slowly throughout the entire cooking process.

A little noticed article on msnbc.com which I saw over the weekend:

More than 20,000 people have been killed on Mumbai’s notoriously overcrowded train system over the past five years — many of them crushed, run over or electrocuted — according to official data.

Mumbai’s trains are the lifeline of India’s financial capital, carrying some 7 million commuters every day, but an average of 10 people don’t survive the trip each day.

Wow. Just wow. I thought my commute was annoying… but deadly?

Originally uploaded by Chaitanya_Sagar