Monthly Archives: November 2006

Custom of the Season: Pt 2

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Gift giving becomes a hassle when you don’t really know the person very well, and a gift of some sort is obligatory (bosses, co-workers) , or you know them really well but have given them practically everything they want/need on previous occasions (parents and siblings), or they already have everything already (grandparents.)
Books are a good fall-back for me, as far as gifting my nearest and dearest, but an even better all-purpose gift is something to eat, and I don’t mean a plate of rock-hard Christmas cookies or one of those little baskets from Swiss Colony with the triangular little packets of cheese-food that taste like a pair of cruddy gym-socks smell, or one of those lavish and overpriced catalogue numbers. (Although I love Harry & David fruit baskets, ever since we got one at the office one year: oh, yum. The office staff fought viciously over the apples and pears.) I mean a carefully constructed food basket, and no, you do not need Martha Stewarts’ skills…or her pocketbook.

My favorite gift food-basket starts with a cookbook: any cookbook. Those tiny specialty cookbooks about the size of a Beatrix Potter book, the thin paper-bound books that used to be given away by companies, any of the Sunset cookbooks… really, anything that has some nice recipes in it that would appeal to the recipient. You do not want to build a basket around a cookbook of sweets for someone that is a diabetic, or a book of barbequed meats for a vegan. I score cookbooks of this kind at Half Price Books, but any source for literary overruns and overstocks is fine.

Pick a recipe out of the book, mark the recipe with a book mark, or a piece of ribbon… and measure out all the ingredients for it in appropriate containers, carefully labeled and packaged. I have bought little bottles and cellophane bags, and sheets of labels at the Container Store, or hobby shop, or at the local big-box import place. You can also purchase sheets of shrink-wrap, or shrink-wrap bags— the kind that you can use a hair-dryer to shrink over the basket when it is all finished, and excelsior or finely shredded packing materiel at the same place.

Really, you are only limited by your budget; there is nothing to stop you from building a basket around a whole meal— but if perishables are included, either assemble at the last minute, or keep refrigerated. Include in a bottle of wine, or a loaf of bakery bread, if you like, and any fancy accessories you can afford. I have done baskets based on a recipe for tea bread, and adorned it with a wooden spoon or an inexpensive metal whisk. I did a basket for the head of the firm I worked for two Christmases ago with the recipe for this soup and a copy of the book it was taken from. The finished basket was trimmed with a bunch of bay-leaves and whole garlic clove.

It’s not strictly required to stick to items for human consumption, either: I did a basket for some friends moving into a new house in the suburbs, filled with a bird feeder, a pound of bird-seed to fill it, and a little field guide to local birds. I also did a basket for the significant other last year, which included a spa-style shower head, some aromatherapy soaking salts and male-oriented toiletries, and a really nice cotton towel. It’s not even strictly necessary to use a basket, either; just some sort of appropriate container; say, a terracotta pot for a collection of gardening supplies, or one of those big tins for a collection of gourmet popcorns, with a popper and an oven mitt, for instance.

About the baskets, though; this is the embarrassing part. To buy an empty basket at retail price will likely make it the most expensive single element, which is counterproductive to my goal of a high-end one-off gift basket at an affordable price; Neiman-Marcus quality at a Walmart cost. And the best place to find a variety of attractive baskets…(hanging my head and blushing deeply) … is at the thrift store. Goodwill, Salvation Army, even yard sales will do. I usually pay only a dollar or two. They can be washed in mild soap and warm water, or even painted with spray paint, to match the color theme (if any) of the gift. And it’s not like anyone will really be looking at the basket; they’ll be looking at the contents anyway.

So there you are: stuck for a gift for someone you only know casually? Food is always gratefully received: trust me.

Currently Reading (061127)

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Eragon by Christopher Paolini.
I have to admit, I’d never even heard of it until the previews for the movie came out.

What do I think?  It’s derivative.  I mean that in the best possible way.  Do you like stories of good vs evil?  Do you like stories with dragons and elves and dwarves?  Do you like Tolkien, DeLint,  Kay, Brooks?  Then you should find nothing wrong with this story.  You’ve heard it before.  There are no suprises here…at least I expect none…but it’s good enough to keep you up at night.

Custom of the Season

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I did, on one single occasion, spend the entire Friday-after-Thanksgiving in the mall and department store. Not because I had a yen for joining the yearly Christmas-shopping exercise in masochism… but because I was working retail that year. I was on terminal leave, and job-hunting in a desultory fashion, and took a temp position in a department store which paid a salary plus commission on sales. (If nothing else, this arrangement will guarantee attentive sales staff… and besides, the employee discount was totally generous.) It was rather fun, at first; If you truly enjoy shopping, and hanging out with other women, and people-watching, who wouldn’t get a kick from hanging around a department store? But the day after Thanksgiving was all that and doing a sort of sales-floor triathlon; we were at top speed all that long day. Not much more than half an hour for lunch, no times when it slowed down long enough that you could sit down in the back room and put up your feet.
Dense crowds in the mall, cars slowly rotating the parking lots looking for that rare species, a parking place, long lines at every cash register, and workdays that stretched out so long that another sales associate lamented that the only place she could shop for Christmas, besides the store we worked in was Walmart, because it was open twenty four hours a day. I had my fill of holiday retail madness after that experience, and truth is, I usually don’t need to shop for Christmas presents during December.

That is because I am one of those tiresomely organized people who shop for Christmas throughout the year. I didn’t start out that way, honestly… it came about because of being overseas for so long. The mail deadline for sending parcels to the States, and getting them there by Christmas was routinely in October, which meant that I had to be done with shopping by the end of September. Sometimes opportunities to shop were limited, which stretched the shopping season out for a couple of months, and bumped back even thinking about what to get everyone to… oh, say early summer. Spring, even. This set the habit for me, of buying things with an eye towards Christmas… especially if they were on sale, whenever I saw them. “OOhhh, that would be perfect for (insert name here)!”, so add it to the collection in the box on the top shelf of the master suite closet. Christmas… it comes every year, just like April 15th. Putting off doing anything about buying gifts or doing the income tax return will not, will not make either of them go away. Trust me on this.

This has the advantage of being extremely easy on the pocketbook… as long as you remember who the heck you bought something for; a disadvantage with a large family. So, all I have to do during December’s retail madness is to take out the box with the gifts bought throughout the year, and wrap them… in the paper that I bought the week after Christmas of last year when it was marked down 70%.
And put up my feet and have another glass of Chablis. You’re welcome – I live to serve.

(next: Sgt. Mom’s specialty gift Christmas baskets)

Another Tiny Taste of Good Stuff

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(In gratitude for donations recieved, another sip of the good stuff, to be savored like a fine liqueur is posted: from Chapter 2 of “To Truckee’s Trail”. There was absolutely nothing happening over this last week. Thanksgiving has spread to cover the entire working week. Previous exerpts here, and here)

“Here we are, for the moment, at least,” John said, Ugly Grey’s reins looped over his arm, as he helped Elizabeth down from the wagon seat. “Mr. Stephens, at the smithy seemed to think we’ll be camping here for about three weeks.”
“It shall be very restful, I am sure…” Elizabeth looked doubtfully towards the lively Patterson camp. It seemed there were a lot of children, romping happily and noisily amongst the clutter of tents, gear and supplies. Then she squared her shoulders and said, “I shall have to call, I suppose, as soon as our camp is set up.”
“So you should… as others will be calling on us,” John answered, though he did not think that would be happening as soon as it did, a few minutes later as he was unsaddling Ugly Grey. He turned around to find two pair of eyes, watching him with intense and fearless interest; a bold urchin of about seven years, with a girl toddler dragging at his hand. The little one was sucking her thumb. They had dark hair, and something of the look of Isabella Patterson, and John said, gravely
“Good morning, children… I am Doctor Townsend. Might I beg for an introduction?” The little girls’ eyes rounded in astonishment over the thumb stopping her mouth, but the boy launched into full spate.
“H’lo, I’m Edward Sidney Patterson, but everyone calls me Eddie, and this is my baby sister Sadie, her real name’s Sarabeth Margaret, but it don’t matter ‘cause she can’t talk yet an’ Paw-Paw Isaac says you are a real doctor an’ you’re going to Californy jus’ like us an’ Ma, an’ our Pa went out there two year agone… is that your horse? Pa wrote an tol’ us that he was settled… kin I help you groom him? I like horses, we used t’have horses on our farm in Ohio, but Paw-Paw Isaac tol’ Ma she should sell them an’ buy mules instead, but Ma, she said mules cost too much an…”
“Eddie?” John asked, vastly amused, “Do you ever stop talking?”
“Nossir.” Eddie shook his head decisively. He reached over and pulled his sister’s thumb out of her mouth with an almost audible pop, “Don’t suck your thumb, Sadie, Ma will give you a licking. Does your horse have a name? Ma let us name all of our teams, there’s Baldy an’ Socks an’ Spotty. An’…”
“Here, “John handed him the curry-comb, “I’ll let you name my horse, if you give him a good combing. And keep talking, that way he’ll know where you are, and not step on you.” Little Eddie beamed, and set to work with energy and the greatest good-will in the world, even if he barely came up to Ugly Grey’s nose, while his baby sister sat in the grass and watched, thumb creeping back to her mouth again. John walked away, hefting his saddle, and remarking to Allen, who was unhitching his teams with a great rattle of chains,
“On my oath, the boy’s tongue must be hinged in the middle, since it flaps so, at both ends.”
“Bold little squirt,” Allen said, with a chuckle. “Good thing he does talk so much, I’d be coming close to stepping on him myself, otherwise.”
Continue reading →

Could the Zune Kill the iPod?

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Perhaps I’ve been too easy on Apple and too hard on MicroSoft. Mike Egan has some opinions that I can’t argue against too stridently, but I will.

Zune: So you want to be an iPod killer

Microsoft’s Zune finally shipped, and everyone agrees: It’s nice but definitely no “iPod killer.” But it could be. And should be. I’ll tell you how in a minute.

In my Computerworld column Why Microsoft’s Zune scares Apple to the core, I argued that, unlike Apple’s overconfident iPod fans, Apple itself is taking Zune very seriously. In that column, I listed Zune attributes and Microsoft capabilities that could hit Apple where it counts—profit margin and market share. I never argued that Zune would be better than the iPod, or even that Zune would succeed. My sole point was that Apple is taking the Zune seriously as a threat to its profitable and dominant iPod line and has good reason to do so.

…

How to kill the iPod

The Apple iPod is beautiful, sleek and simple. Microsoft will never sell a media player that is more elegant than the iPod. That’s just not going to happen, given the DNA of each company. What isn’t inconceivable, however, is that Microsoft could create a Zune that’s more desirable than the iPod. After all, the Mac is more elegant than Windows, but most people prefer Windows. And that’s how Microsoft can kill the iPod: Make the Zune more like a Windows PC.

Let me say that in another way: The Zune can succeed not by copying the iPod, but by becoming the “Anti-iPod.”

He’s got a point. While I love my iPod and am excessively pleased with my switch to a MacBook Pro for my laptop, I know some people want the ability to muck around with their computers. Me? I’ve become tired of mucking about a computer when I’m not getting paid to muck about. When I’m at home, I just want my computer to be stable and to work well. It doesn’t bother me a bit that I haven’t wanted or needed to access my Mac’s kernel. Writing scripts bores me. I find it tedious. One of our commenters in a previous post mentioned the difference between a Mac and a PC was like the difference between a new Mercedes and a 68 Mustang. You’re going to be messing around with the Mustang and you’ll enjoy it. You get the Mercedes because you want to enjoy your driving. That’s where I’m at. I want to enjoy my computing, I don’t enjoy all the mechanics as much as I used to. Besides, I can customize my Mac right out of the box much easier than I could my PC without having to dig through layers and layers of menus.

Later in the same article he asserts that we want a multi-function handheld, Phone, Camera, Music Player, Email receiver and that if the Zune turns into that, it may knock the iPod down. My answer to that is, it would have to do all of those functions exceptionally well. The thing about my cellphone/camera is that it’s a lousy camera. My iPod is an amazingly easy to use music player. With the iPhone in next year’s future, I don’t think, I know that it will be elegant and functional before it’s released.

Yes, I’ve become an Apple-phile. I prefer the elegance and functionality vs the kit/do-it-yourself mentality of the Windows PC community. Lazy? Okay. Maybe. But my Mac has locked up twice since I’ve had it, once when I was trying to install Windows Media Player and once when I was trying to mess around with a beta version of Seamonkey vs the stable release.
Give me a device that works as well, right of the the box as my iPod and MacBook did and I’ll consider whatever they throw at me. I know that sooner or later you’re not going to be able to find just a music player or just a phone. Trying to find a flat panel scanner that WASN’T a printer was damn near impossible a couple of months ago. Multi-function seems to be the deal these days.

I blame Gen X’s fascination with Transformers.

Wal-Marts and Macs

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Having survived Thanksgiving (we only had eleven guests this year), the only specific plans I had for the long weekend were to go to the annual Wal-Mart Friday blitz and to get Windows installed on Red Haired Girl’s Mac Mini. The first went well; the second is, shall we say, a work in progress with the results (or status) to be reported in another post.

First let me say that I have a typical guy attitude about shopping – I hate it. I prefer gouging out my eyeballs with a dull spoon to walking up and down the aisles on the watch for some widget that would be just perfect for (fill in the name here), particularly during Christmas season when the legions are out with the same mission. However, about three years ago Real Wife talked me into going to Wal-Mart for the Black Friday sale. I was hooked. It isn’t really shopping because, per the terms of my agreed participation, we walk in with a list, reconnoiter, develop a plan, execute said plan (ruthlessly if need be), and leave. We then go to a local diner for steak (very rare) and eggs. This year, unfortunately, Wal-Mart and the local diner did not coordinate, with the result that the former started the sale an hour earlier, and the latter did not adjust their schedule accordingly. Hence, no bloody steak and eggs. Nonetheless, we were 100% effective in securing the sale items we wanted. My specific task was to snag a Symphonic 20” LCD TV ($248) for the kitchen, which is where I watch 98% of the time. I located the pallet with the TVs and secured my outpost at 04:30 hrs. Enemy forces began forming almost immediately, while I studied each new arrival to establish whether they would be a threat or not in order to adjust my tactics accordingly. I had a fresh buzz cut for the occasion (it helps to look like a potentially violent criminal). This year, a cowboy walked up and, in a pleasant conversational tone, told me that he wanted two of them. I laughed and said “Fine, but this one right here is mine”, all the while giving him that penetrating look that drill sergeants use to such great effect. He got the message. Continue reading →

The Use of History

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Reader Mark Rosenbaum commented on one of my historical pieces this week: “Why couldn’t they tell history this well when I was in school a half century ago?” . About that same time, I ran across this story— part of the run-up to the Thanksgiving holiday. Perhaps it might, in a small way, explain why people are not so enamored of history these days… at least, the sort of history taught in schools.

I can only assume that we are supposed to marvel at Mr. Morgan’s method of teaching, and his grim multi-culti sensitivity, in pounding it in relentlessly to a class of grade-schoolers that we actual or spiritual descendents of Pilgrims are “Bad, Bad People, Who Stole Everything From the Indians, and Celebrating Thanksgiving is Just As Bad as the Holocaust, Almost”. Myself, I think “Jeeze, what a dick-head!” Talk about sucking all the joy out of the room! Seriously, teachers like this was one of the reasons I gave a miss to teaching myself; and the reason for private school looking better and better when it came to Blondie. For one, the School Sisters of St. Francis did not conflate the Plymouth Colony in it’s shaky first years with three hundred years of savage conflict. Dumping on the poor Pilgrims for the Indian Wars seems to be a bit of a fallacy, as well as grandly oversimplifying history— Not to mention the fact that the Indians warred on each other with keen enjoyment and no little inventive brutality for centuries. At the very least, Mr. Morgan is a dickhead for ruining the innocent joy of children in what appears to have been a fond ritual. Having the kids dress up like Pilgrims and Indians and commemorating a peaceful feast together… dear, can’t have that, can we? It’s just too simple!

History for children ought to be simplified, but dumping a metaphorical turd in the punchbowl like that may not be the most effective way to begin teaching the nuances of it all.

Because you have to begin with teaching the history, then bring in the nuances and the highlights, as well as the lowlights, the grand stories, and events. We need our heroes, we have to know what people did, how they behaved, and why. It’s almost a primal urge… why do we still read the Iliad, of Beowulf and King Arthur, of Shakespeare’s’ kings and nobles, and Civil War generals. We need the stories of people, almost as much as we need oxygen, water, sustenance. We are driven to accounts of glorious deeds as much as of the ignoble, of disasters and adversity, wanting examples of how well, or how badly people behave in adversity, wanting to pattern our own selves against those who stood as pillars of integrity in bad times, and shining heroes in the good times. If we do not know how people in the past could survive, endure, and persevere… than how can we hope for ourselves? We would be alone, without a map, without an idea, and without hope. It would be a sort of intellectual sensory-deprivation tank, to be cut off from the past. Mr. Morgan’s chief offense, I fear, is that with the best intentions in the world, he is subtly discouraging kids from looking at history. Besides the permanently apologetic and masochistic, who truly wants to be ashamed of their ancestors, and where they came from? Yes, Mr. Morgan, about the paving material used on the approach to the underworld?

There is a theory that all this rubbishing of our heroes and heroines, and the events in our national saga being constantly painted as sordid, vile, an epic of treachery and double-dealing from the very beginning has a deliberate propose; an elaborate Marxist-Gramscian plot to render us spiritless, compliant to the leadership of some vaguely socialist cabal. It might very well be so; but tools like Mr. Morgan and his ilk may have overplayed their hand, because in spite of their tireless labors in the classroom and the upper reaches of academia and intelligentsia, people are still drawn to history on their own: to their own family memoirs, to amateur history circles, and to re-enactors’ groups of everything from mountain-man rendezvous and black-power shooting, to Civil War and Revolutionary battles, to reconstructing lifestyles and vintage clothing, and a hundred other ways of reaching out and touching the past. We cannot help ourselves, it’s an imperative; we must understand the present, and perhaps find a path through the future… in spite of educational apparatchiks like Mr. Morgan and his grim little exercise in political correctitude.

Wouldn’t it have been much more nuanced, do you think, to emphasize that on that long ago Thanksgiving, two very different peoples, whose descendents would be at each others throats for three hundred years, were yet able to join together for a great feast, to be courteous and friendly with each other, for at least a little while? Next month, I suppose Mr. Morgan will follow up by telling the kiddies that Santa Claus is an invention of the mercantile-industrial establishment.

Noggin Bloggin’ (061124)

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I haven’t mentioned anything about head shaving in quite awhile. There’s just not that much to write about it and after all, it’s just another hair, or lack of hair, style. But I thought I’d give an update for those two or three people that might care.

I do go through periods of changing how often I shave my head depending on how lazy I am that week. Sometimes I don’t shave more than twice a week. Sometimes I shave every other day. Sometimes I shave every day. I don’t go less than twice a week because the irritation involved in shaving once a week is just not worth it. I don’t let it go much longer than four days. On those odd weeks that I do, I have to electric shave it first otherwise…damn…that just hurts.

I’ve tried different shave cremes and different razors. Beautiful Wife doesn’t give me a hard time about it. I let her go crazy whenever she’s near Burt’s Bees Wax products so she puts up with my searching for the most comfortable shave.

For shaving creme I broke down and spent the money and tried Aveeno’s Therapeutic Shave Gel. I’ve stopped looking for shaving creme. It works. Well. Beautiful Wife even commented on how well it works on her legs and pits. It’s a keeper.

I hate to admit this after making fun of it before, but I tried and LOVE the Gillette Fusion. My face hasn’t been smoother since I was a kid and it shaves the noggin with practically NO irritation what-so-ever. Seriously, five blades are better than three and I thought I’d never give up my Mach 3. You’ll have a hard time convincing me that I need MORE than five blades though.