20 2x4x8’s, and I have the proof below 🙂
Category: General
A sign of spring
Success! We’ve been trying to establish an asparagus patch, started with root cuttings from my father in law and have supplemented with seeds each year. It’s supposed to take about 3 years, and on our third year we have plenty of healthy asparagus shoots poking up. Last year we had exactly 2. Delicious grilled asparagus will soon follow.
Saturday spent on coop
Spent my Saturday running errands then working on this little coop to put our hatchlings in. It’s not done yet, but it’ll do for their first 3 weeks r so until we put them outside to meet the rest of the flock.
Time to grow our flock
Thanks to our friend Amy, whose students just hatched a bunch of peepers, we have some chickens to add to our flock.
Reflections on the Giants’ season and the Super Bowl
If you read through my posts about football here over the years, you’ll conclude I don’t know much about football, despite avidly following the Giants, and more generally the sport, since the mid-80’s. I doubt I’ve missed more than a handful of Giants games in the last 25 years – literally. And yet I went into this year’s Super Bowl figuring the Giants to lose by 7+, and over the course of this season, never, including during every playoff game, figuring the Giants had a strong shot to win. * Shame on me. Some quick hits:
* Tom Coughlin gets a pass from me, from now until he retires. Twice he’s brought underdog teams to the Superbowl and against everyone’s expectations come away with the win. Their consistent mid-season collapses have driven me mad the last ~5 years, but I cannot argue with success and I give him a ton of credit for it.
* Eli Manning really came into his own this year, and was the most significant factor in the Giants success this year. This is not to take anything away from JPP, Cruz, Osi, and a number of other contributors, but Eli was playing behind a mediocre line with an underperforming running game all season, and yet he had a career year, bringing the team back from behind seemingly half of their games. Unlike in many of his previous seasons, he also couldn’t count on an above average defense to help keep the team in the games. It was on him, more often than not, and he stepped up. I also think if there’s anyone left who still thinks the Giants ‘overpaid’ to get Eli from San Diego back when, they need to go eat a bucket of poo. If you didn’t think he was worth it after the first win against the Patriots (and if not, what’s wrong with you?) you have no leg left to stand on now.
* The Super Bowl was phenomenal. As I said, I figured the Pats to win, based on their passing attack being better than our pass defense and their having a chip the size of Manhattan on their shoulders after the Giants stopped them from becoming the de facto ‘best NFL team ever’ the last time they met in the Super Bowl. Plus, the Giants had played ‘stink up the joint’ let-down games all season (the loss to Seattle, the 2 Redskin losses, the Miami ‘we only won because of Eli’, and the loss to the Eagles, facing a washed up bust of a QB and a team on the ropes) , and their entire playoff run, including the Super Bowl, I kept figuring on it happening again. Wonder of wonders, it didn’t. The Giants did just enough to win. Tom Brady safety on the first Pats Drive is my 4th favorite superbowl play ever, after 1) Ingram’s 3rd down catch in the Giants’s Bills Superbowl where he broke through like 7 defenders, 2) The Eli/Tyree hookup where Eli eluded a sack then tossed a ball that Tyree caught off his helmet in the first Pats/Giants Superbowl, 3) Eli to Burress FTW in the first Pats/Giants Superbowl. I love the safety so much because at the time it felt like it was a tone-setter, and suddenly after coming into the game full of apprehension, I had hope, hope I tell ya! 😉
Truth be told I didn’t ‘enjoy’ the game until it was over. I spent most of the game pacing back and forth in front of the TV, waiting for Brady to put it together, leading to me freaking out by the end of the 2nd and all of the 3rd quarter. I was convinced we would lose. I’ve taped the game so I can watch it again and actually enjoy it on a play by play basis.
* I still dislike Kevin Gilbride and wish he was off coaching some other team’s offense. I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to reach into the screen and strangle him over the course of a season of ‘let’s run it into the line for a -2/+2 running play, for the 9th time this game.’ Maybe he’s a genius and knows that keeps the safeties up near the line to open up the passing attack, I don’t know. Certainly he has Super Bowl rings and all I have is this blog full of inaccurate football predictions 😉 Still, I loathe his predictable play calling and wish he would play to the teams’ strengths instead of doggedly sticking to the same script game after game.
I hope Cruz and JPP get paid this offseason, they deserve it. I’d be happy to see the Giants find a way to bring Manningham back for another year, though it seems unlikely. I’d love to see them find a tight end of two – I don’t hate Ballard but figure we can do better. They need to find offensive lineman, at least one more solid linebacker, and they need at least a couple of defensive backs. I think it’s time to say a fond farewell to Jacobs. Next season will be tough for them – tough schedule (lets hope the Eagles coming on strong towards the end of the seasons is not a harbinger of next season), everyone gunning for them, and some serious gaps on both sides of the ball. Still, given what they pulled off this season?!?! Who knows 😉
*( I did think they *could* beat the Falcons, and I thought they had a decent chance against San Fran, but based on how uneven they had played all season, I went into each game figuring ‘this is when they have their down game.’)
Contrasts in customer service: Newegg and Amazon
Here’s a little story that perfectly captures the differences in customer service and care companies choose to use, and how it has consequences for them.
Several weeks ago I pre-ordered ‘Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning’ for the PS3 (terrible name but the game is pretty good) from Newegg.com because they had it for $15 off. The day it was supposed to ship, they alerted me to a billing failure and asked me to correct it, which I did (somehow, the expiration date on my CC was wrong, which was hard to explain since they had it in their database and I did not change it). 10 minutes after I update my billing they charge me and tell me my order has been processed. 10 minutes after this, they email me to tell me my order was cancelled and they would refund my money in 2-3 days. Digging around, I discovered a lot of folks who had pre-ordered the game from Newegg had also had their pre-orders cancelled after their credit card was charged.
I’ve done business with Newegg for a long time and generally had really good experiences with them, so I was willing to cut them a little slack and, giving them the benefit of the doubt, chalk this up to automated systems misfiring, but this was still pretty irritating.
Anyway, I managed to pre-order the game for the full retail price on Amazon that same day, and several days later had the game and was playing it, only for $15 more than I had planned to pay. 3 days later, Newegg refunded my money. a week after that, Amazon sent me a no strings attached $20 gift card because they had dropped the price of the game on their site and were honoring their price protection guarantee.
!!!!
Get the difference there? Newegg, possibly scamming me or maybe just a little incompetent. No apology, and they sit on my money for 3-4 days. Amazon, bending over backwards to make sure I remain a happy customer.
Today when I had to order some parts for a gift I’m putting together for my nephew’s birthday, guess where I shopped?
Actions have consequences and all that.
Getting psyched for the Giants game
OK, truth be told we took this right before the Falcons game a couple of weeks ago, but the sentiment is the same today 😉
Partially recovered from a metamusing disaster
I’ll write more on this later, including a sad rant on an ubuntu upgrade which went very badly, but for now: the site is a little back, most importantly with the years of content from my blog. The photo gallery is a total loss (!!!) but at least I’m back up and partially running. I’ll explain more later.
Delicious diet soda recipe for Sodastream
My wife got me a Sodastream for Christmas last year. I love the thing and use it constantly. Unfortunately, while I like the fruit essences they sell to make flavored seltzers, I’m not as big a fan of the various soda syrups they sell. My wife likes the ginger ale, and the diet grapefruit is ok, but nothing they make adequately replaces my Diet Coke cravings. I started testing concoctions after trying the various diet syrups they sell and not really liking any of them. By happenstance I discovered that if you make a regular Diet Dr. Pete soda, then add two tablespoons of coffee concentrate to it, it’s delicious, with a much richer flavor and enough caffeine to nicely substitute for a Diet Coke – in fact, I now like this concoction better. You can also increase the concentrate ratio to match your taste – I’ve gone as high as 4, at which point it gets into ‘caffeine jitters’ territory for me so I’ve dialed it back, but whatever works, the flavor is still pretty good at that level.
We happen to have coffee concentrate around anyway so this is pretty convenient for me. If you’re not familiar with it, concentrate is made using a cold filtering process. We have a cold filter concentrate maker already, but if you don’t have one around and want to experiment, it’s pretty easy to make. Here’s a sample recipe. It also makes fantastic coffee, and is a convenient way to have a single cup when you don’t want to brew a pot.
A word of warning about this recipe – for whatever reason, it causes the soda to fizz up more dramatically than if you make Dr Pete’s without the concentrate, so open the bottle carefully or you’ll end up with soda everywhere. Also make sure to leave a little room in the bottle when you make the seltzer – fill it just a bit below the regular fill line, or pour a little out after you mix it so there is room for the concentrate in the bottle.
yum yum good: aerosol meat substitutes!
What a great line from this tangentially related post over on boingboing:
I once proposed a line of perverse vegan aerosol meat substitutes like “I can’t believe it’s not organ meat” and “I can’t believe it’s not marrow bones” that would come as a soy spray in a mousse can whose nozzle mated with a dishwasher/microwave-safe mold (with plastic “bones” as appropriate) that you could nuke for a minute before ejecting the piping hot reformed slurry on a plate and popping the mold right into the dishwasher.
Let me go on record as someone who would buy such a product for the gag gift/social commentary value alone. My dog might even eat the output. Someone get a kickstarter going!
Dave's Place/Metamusing 