onfocus

This is what happens when insomnia meets photoshop:


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The Asian Grocery Store Demystified by Bladholm, Eismann

I know this book would help our sushi-making adventures. I bet it could even tell me which mysterious item in the market is eel. via emv.

Update: I heard this book is better for Chinese food than Japanese. And Guide to Food Buying in Japan would be a better choice for Sushi. Thanks again, emv!

skp and I are having fun teaching ourselves how to make sushi. We started tonight with some simple vegetable rolls (or maki to use the lingo), and they were very tasty. The seaweed was a little tough though, so we need to figure out which kind to get.





My favorite sushi rolls are rock-n-rolls with cooked eel, and I'd like to try that next. I have no idea where to get eel or how to cook it. It should be fun to learn.

I added another quick feature to BookWatch. If you click on a mention page, you can now click "more books" under any weblog. This will give you all of the books that have recently been mentioned on that weblog. Here's the more books entry for my weblog. You can also see the date that entry was added, and the date it was last verified. (That can be handy for finding the mention if it has scrolled off the front page.)

Overview of Changes to Legal Rights compiled by the Associated Press. [via Tom Tomorrow] Hopefully we can change this. Maybe we can convince the people who are supposed to be representing our interests to repeal the "Patriot" Act.

Once in a great while one of these cute frogs gets in the house. (Like tonight around 1am.) Luckily we have a special trap to deal with these situations and release them back into their native habitat. They're not easy to catch though, they can hop.

Erik Benson has been very generous in citing Weblog Bookwatch as an inspiration for his All Consuming, but it has definitely taken on a life and identity of its own. He's put an amazing amount of work into his site, and has built some great features like integrated TrackBacks, XML output of all data, and friends lists. shew!

His work has inspired me to think about different ways I could share the Weblog Bookwatch data, and I implemented a small new feature tonight. On the mentions page for a book, there's now something called Books in common across these weblogs. The BookWatch analyzes the given set of weblogs and finds the book mentions they share in common. It's sort of a "people who mentioned this book, also mentioned these..."

The last time I was at Armstrong Woods there were signs up asking people to wash their boots and cars before visiting another park. Now I know why. Sudden oak death has infected redwoods and douglas firs in Armstrong and some of my favorite local hiking spots (including Jack London State Park). If it's found that this kills redwoods it could be devastating to the entire California coast.

Tim O'Reilly has a great post about reality on his weblog. I love the quote he mentions, "The map is not the territory." True, but hard to remember because maps are handy. Another way to describe what he's discussing is the Zen concept of Beginner's Mind that Shunryu Suzuki talks about. Suzuki says we loose our ability to see things the same way as when they were new to us, and that it's a constant struggle to keep our perceptions ready. One of my favorite Suzuki quotes: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities. In the expert's mind there are few."

Last week my folks sent me this little puzzle for my birthday. I was completely obsessed with it until I solved it. I spent every spare moment shuffling tiles or trying to figure out strategies for shuffling tiles. I got fairly close quickly, but when it got down to 2 or 3 tiles out of place it became maddening. Part of it was not knowing the final picture...and this painting made it confusing. I'm not sure if my folks sent it because they thought I would enjoy it, or knew it would torture me. I'm still not sure which happened, but I'm glad it's over. Thanks though, folks! (I wanted to get this snapshot before I scramble it and give it to someone else so they can have the "fun" of solving it. :) Here's a better image of the painting.

Happy Labor Day! skp and I took advantage of the extra day and went out to Bodega Bay. The weather was perfect (which is very odd for Bodega Bay) so we walked along the beach, soaked up sun, and watched the surfers. I've never seen so many people out there, but there was still plenty of room for everyone. Of course I took my camera along.




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skp: "These three-day weekends are hell on our relationship."