baking christmas lizzies

I'm cranking up a few dozen Lizzies, my favorite Christmas cookie. Here's my variation on the recipe, maybe these should be called the Lizzie Borden variant because they are killer. Makes about 4-5 dozen cookies.

1/2 cup butter
1 cup brown sugar
4 eggs
1 t vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour
3 t baking soda
freshly ground nutmeg, cinnamon & cloves to taste (I only use a few pinches of each)
1 lb raisins (Trader Joe's has a medley of golden, red flame and black that are perfect for this. In fact the whole TJ's nut & fruit aisle is a great source for Lizzie bakers)
1 lb dried fruits (try a mix of dried cherries, apricots, figs, cranberries; chop the big pieces up)
4 cups nuts (this year I used about 2c pecans, 1c slivered almonds, and some chopped brazil nuts)
1/2 cup nice cognac or brandy (I used a mellow old Martell Cordon Bleu handed down from my grandmother)

The night before you plan to bake, soak the fruits in the cognac.

Blend the butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla and spices in a large bowl. Stir in the baking soda, then add the flour and mix with a wooden spoon until fully combined. You should have a nice creamy, sticky cookie dough at this point. Fold in the fruit including any leftover liquid, and add the nuts. Mix until well combined, at which point you may wonder if there's enough dough to hold all the chunky goodies together. Don't worry, the cookies are supposed to look like that ;-)

Place 1"-2" balls of dough on a lightly greased cookie sheet, and bake at 325F for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a rack, and plan for a good hard workout because you are going to eat a lot of these puppies.

alison krauss & robert plant

What does she mean when she sings "Oh oh child, the way you shake that thing, gonna make you burn, gonna make you sting"?

Alison Krauss & Robert Plant
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2008, San Francisco CA

neal stephenson's anathem reading

Stewart Brand, Neal Stephenson & Danny Hillis in conversation
Regency Ballroom, San Francisco 09/09/2008

selling the sixth deadly sin

"You are bidding on Envy — the ultimate turn-on.
Some people say Envy is a sin. They are just jealous.
It’s the fusion of art and technology.
How will you use yours?"

burning down the house...

Do I smell smoke?

it cuts like a knife (but it feels so right)

That is just hilarious dude. Engadget, Giz,TechCrunch, TechMeme, Digg...not bad, not bad at all. Happy B-day Sood, you rock!

blackbird banned at gaming confab: "too bloody powerful"

WTF? This is just hard to believe, who are these wankers? I guess our crew did too good a job designing it?

IPCGA disqualifies HP Blackbird 002 from 2008 International PC Gaming Tournament...International PC gaming association determines next-gen PC gaming rig is simply too powerful for this year’s competition.

Hey, decide for yourself ;-)

like hope but different

hope (yes we can)

the sky remains

going to bristol for mscapefest '07?

Let me know if you're going to be in Bristol UK for the Mediascape conference on 3 December, mscapeFest '07. I'm hoping to go, and the more fellow pervasive gamers and pub crawlers, the better!

separated at birth?

Wired Gadget Lab finds a remarkable similarity between our little Blackbird 002 and...the iPhone. LOFL!!! And they wrote a very nice review saying among other things, "Gaming PC manufacturers take note: The bar just got raised into outer space."

Must...live...up...to...hype...

blackbird rising

A little something from the day job...

UPDATED: Lots of good coverage coming out...
* The inside scoop from partner-in-crime Rahul Sood
* CNET.com: “HP's Blackbird 002 earns the highest rating this editor has ever given a desktop PC."
* PCMag.com: "Five Stars"
* Gizmodo: "The Love Child of HP and Voodoo"
* Business Week: "Game On for HP"
* WSJ: "Gaming PCs for the Masses"
* Kotaku: "Project Blackbird Lands at my House"

in silicon valley, millionaires who don’t feel rich

Wow, this NY Times story really says it all about life here in Silly Valley.

Mr. Kremen estimated his net worth at $10 million. That puts him firmly in the top half of 1 percent among Americans, according to wealth data from the Federal Reserve, but barely in the top echelons in affluent towns like Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Atherton. So he logs 60- to 80-hour workweeks because, he said, he does not think he has nearly enough money to ease up.

“You’re nobody here at $10 million,” Mr. Kremen said earnestly over a glass of pinot noir at an upscale wine bar here.

Well that's a bit overwrought in my book, but there is a lot of money here, and a lot of overt materialism. It is very hard sometimes, not to fall into the trap of measuring your personal success in terms of flash cars, enormous homes, VC deals, and the number of staff you have managing your lush life.

BTW, it was interesting to see former HP colleague Celeste Baranski profiled in the article...hey Celeste, we're neighbors -- drop me a line and we can talk story sometime when we both aren't chained to our desks ;-)

the killer app for the iphone?

One month into my iPhone experience, I have to say that Google Reader is the killer app for this juicy little telefruit. Actually I suppose I should say, other people's ideas are the killer app, but Reader on the JesusPhone provides a very elegant conduit for bringing those ideas to my brain. What's really great about this is, now I can easily keep up on my feeds in those empty interstitial moments (waiting in lines, riding the train, walking the dog) instead of when I'm sitting at my PC supposedly working, paying bills etc. It's pretty much addictive, and I use it way more than any of the other apps on the current iPhone deck.

It seems like Google is detecting the iPhone, because the Reader interface on the iPhone is different than the normal mobile version of Reader. It also appears they are adding features to Reader to enhance iPhone use. For example, I noticed that the list of feeds changed from a simple list of text links to a formatted list of text links with graphics for the number of unread items, sized nicely for the screen.

At first I was a bit disappointed because there was no "share" button to add items to my link blog. But a fews days later, "share" became a standard part of the interface at the bottom of each item. Thanks Googlers, that was a great addition. I love it when web services get better like that. Anyway, now you will see a lot more stuff flowing through my link blog (feed) as I am reading a lot more feeds and sharing a lot of interesting things.

why the apple store rocks customer experience

Reason # 518: Human Beings Instead Of Robots

So -- I'm fairly unhappy because the pricey Monster Cable mini-audio-jack-to-stereo-RCA cable I bought last month has failed. I use it to connect my iPod to my car audio system, and music is just no fun with only the left channel playing. Worse, I'm predisposed to be unhappy -- I had to buy the new cable because the damn JesusPhone audio jack is incompatible with standard mini audio plugs (and how annoying is that, I mean really). Anyway, I take the defective cable back to the Apple Store, the fellow behind the counter looks at my receipt, and notes that I am past the 2 week return window. I'm supposed to send it back to Monster, he tells me. But then he says "Let me see what I can do to swap it for you", and a few minutes later I have a brand new cable installed, and Metallica's The Unforgiven is playing in sublime stereo as I roll away from the curb.

I'd like to see that kind of goodness from the return desk at [insert your favorite digital electronics retail outlet here], instead of the usual robots. Todd's right, those last 30 feet make all the difference.

san jose grand prix

We were guests of the RSports racing team at the San Jose Grand Prix, and it was an amazing weekend. RSports driver Justin Wilson ran a blistering qualifier on Saturday to win the pole position, but sadly both Justin and teammate Alex Tagliani experienced car trouble during the race on Sunday and lost several laps in the pits.

It was startling to see downtown SJ blocked off and turned into a racecourse; there must have been four or five miles of concrete barriers and fencing trucked in, to say nothing of all the Champ Cars, classic stock cars, drift cars, and all of their mega-trailers of equipment and crew.
Strange to think that this movable micro-city came and went in less than a week, and would be re-established many times in different cities along the international racing circuit. Racing people are just crazy I guess ;-)

Extensive Flickr set here.

dream theater @ berkeley

I think I'm going to quit my job and go on the road, following Dream Theater from show to show. Flickr set here.

a cold dark night with margo timmins

Despite the ill-tempered chill wind, it was good to see the Cowboy Junkies last night in Saratoga. They have a new record, and they played a generous, soulful show drawn from new and classic material. Never a band to dwell on the happier moments, they segued a very pretty Anniversary Song into the lilting but dark To Love Is To Bury. Their cover of Neil Young's Powderfinger was a highlight of the evening. I wished for 200 More Miles, but alas. Margo Timmins wandered offstage several times to attend to her 4 year old son Ed, who had banged his head and needed motherly ministrations. Michael Timmins seemed a bit distracted on guitar, but his presence was nonetheless deeply resonant in the lyrics of his songs. Peter and I had hot dogs and beer, not necessarily in that order. It was a good night.

[more pics in my Flickr set]

gabriela y rodrigo, guitars on fire

O. M. F. G. Beautiful, savage, astonishing, unbelievable.